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Last update - 00:00 23/05/2008
Over $1 billion pledged for Palestinian projects in Bethlehem conference
By Reuters
Tags: Salam Fayyad, West Bank 

Delegates at a conference in Bethlehem this week pledged to invest a total of $1.4 billion in Palestinian business projects, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told a news conference on Friday.

Fayyad said he expected investment in the projects to create up to 35,000 jobs in the West Bank.

Fayyad and President Mahmoud Abbas hosted the conference in an attempt to raise as much as $2 billion in funding for business and various projects in the West Bank and Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, hoping to boost the Palestinian economy as they hold peace talks with Israel.
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The $1.4 billion included about $550 million from major Arab investors for a new West Bank town and a shopping complex. Hundreds of potential investors from the private sector attended the conference in Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem.

International donors met in Paris in December to pledge $7.7 billion in state as a way of bolstering Abbas and his negotiations with Israel on establishing a Palestinian state.

Officials from the World Bank, including Fayyad himself stressed that while investment in the Palestinian territories is crucial, the economy would not flourish unless Israel eased restrictions on West Bank mobility.

Fayyad, a former World Bank economist who was appointed last year after Abbas dismissed Hamas Islamists from government in a move that ended trade sanctions, said pledges made at the conference were just "the starting point."

"We are throwing a party and the whole world is invited," Fayyad said at the end of the three- day conference.

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      1.   I`ll believe it when I see it 14:28  |  Pervert 23/05/08
      2.   Arab countries are GREAT at promising 14:50  |  x-ray 23/05/08
      3.   MONEY THAT BUYS ROCKETS? 15:25  |  petra 23/05/08
      4.   P.A. investments 15:31  |  Carl Mathis 23/05/08
      5.   Yeah ! so they can build more Quassams. 15:40  |  ottomatik 23/05/08
      6.   More $$$ for infrastructure and schools....NOT 16:02  |  spade 23/05/08
      7.   Arab "donations" to PA 18:10  |  Dr. David Feigenbaum 23/05/08
      8.   Hah! Talk BIG ONLY!! Multiple Hot Airs. 18:19  |  The Archives 23/05/08
      9.   Only to wait for Israeli Bulldozers and Tanks 18:50  |  El-Birawi 23/05/08
      10.   More money to build more metal workshops 19:13  |  spade 23/05/08
      11.   Dont trust the PA to manage any thing 19:20  |  El-Birawi 23/05/08
      12.   Suckers conference 20:11  |  real vision 23/05/08
      13.   Like peeing in the wind 20:27  |  leo 23/05/08
      14.   One for you and one hundred for me 20:54  |  Morrie 23/05/08
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