The outreach event engaged the business community and finance institutions. EU partners discussed investment priorities and financing opportunities. Effective partnerships are key for working towards a resilient, green and digital Palestinian economy. The conference in Gaza focused on the Team Europe support to Gazan businesses, with a view to strengthening economic recovery and reconstruction efforts in the Strip. 

In the margins of the conference, Team Europe partners visited businesses that suffered damages following several rounds of hostilities in the past years and received European financial support for the recovery of their economic activities. The European Union representatives praised the Gazan private sector for its resilience and called for fundamental political and economic changes in Gaza. First and foremost, political unity and resumption of PA government functions are key. Furthermore, it is essential to ease Israel’s access and movement restrictions and create conditions that allow sustainable economic growth.

The event was last in a series of conferences organised across the West Bank and Gaza that will culminate in a high level EU – Palestine Business Forum to be held in Ramallah in autumn 2022 for the first time ever. The main objective of the Business Forum is to better mobilise private and institutional investors towards the Palestinian economy by means of establishing an avenue for public-private dialogue in the framework of the EU – Palestine Investment Platform.    

 Background:

The EU – Palestine Investment Platform was established by the EU and PA in an effort to foster policy dialogue on investment and to help better identify, prioritise, coordinate and promote investment opportunities that the EU External Investment Plan offers through its many instruments in Palestine. A key objective of the Platform is to better attract investment into Palestine through mobilisation of additional public, institutional and private financing that contributes to Palestine’s political, policy and reform priorities

Since the launching of the Platform in December 2020, three high-level meetings convened under the patronage of the Prime Minister of Palestine and the European Union Representative. Two working groups were established on matters of SMEs Finance and Energy Finance meeting three times under the auspices of the Governor of the Palestine Monetary Authority and the Chairman of the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority.             

Moreover, in February 2022 the EU issued the first edition of the EU-Palestine Investment Review detailing and analysing all investment projects promoted by the EU, its Member States and European Financial Institutions as ‘Team Europe’ in Palestine. It reveals that over the last years European partners stepped-up their investments into the Palestinian economy. Of the total amount of EUR 1.63 billion, around 60% were committed only in the last two years showing a remarkable growth in mobilisation of finance for Palestine.