The European Commission today signed an agreement with the Palestine Trade Centre (PalTrade) and the Palestinian Shippers' Council (PSC), to help promote Palestinian trade with neighbouring Arab countries and improve market access for Palestinian products.
Speaking at the official launch of the project in Jerusalem, Mr. John Kjaer, Representative of the European Commission in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said that the EU believed that greater economic integration could provide the foundation for peace and prosperity. He stressed that this project fell within the scope of wide-scale European assistance to help promote Palestinian trade, noting that the EU had "drastically scaled up such support in recent years."
The project, which is worth EUR 432,614, will last for 17 months. The first phase of the project will involve comprehensive research, to assess the capacity of, and identify improvements for, existing trade corridors into Egypt and Jordan. The private sector will be heavily involved in this research phase, providing in-depth analysis of the current situation, and recommendations for the future.
The second component of the project will focus on engaging the Palestinian and Israeli public sectors, as well as officials in third countries (Jordan, Egypt), to promote policies and measures that will help to facilitate trade. The project will also produce an Export Information Guide on trade logistics for the use of Palestinian exporters. In addition, it will provide logistical cost analysis on importing from Egypt and Jordan.
This new project builds on existing efforts by the European Union to help facilitate Palestinian trade. This includes the establishment of the Palestinian Shippers' Council, and the recently signed agreement with the Palestinian Customs Authority to carry out a significant modernisation of the Customs system.
The project was launched in Jerusalem, on the occasion of an EU-funded seminar on Promoting Euro-Mediterranean Trade Facilitation.
For more information, please contact:
Alix de Mauny, Press and Information
Manager, ECTAO
Alix.de-mauny@ec.europa.eu
Majdi Haj Khalil, Palestinian Shippers'
Council
Majdi.khalil@psc.ps
Hanan Taha, PalTrade
htaha@paltrade.org