UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : UNCTAD - Press Conference: Report 2025 on developments in the economy of the Occupied Palestinian Territory

Good morning everybody and thank you for your for your patience.

Welcome to this briefing on the report Developments in the Economy of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

This report is part of the long standing mandate of UN Trade and development of UMTAD to the Ungtat Trade and Development Board to monitor and assess economic conditions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Many of us refer to them also as OPT.

The report provides an annual and evidence based analysis to inform the international community and today we're presenting it to the media.

We join here to my right, your left, by Pedro Manuel Moreno, the Deputy Secretary General of UNGTAT and Mutasim Elgara, the Coordinator of Ungtat's assistance to the Palestinian unit, and the colleague Rami, who will also provide additional insights if requested.

The Deputy Secretary General will open with context and key messages from the report.

Mr Laga will then walk us through the findings in more detail.

After both speakers, we will open the floor for Q&A.

And as I said, a colleague, Rami Alazeh, who's the also the Economic Affairs Officer of Ungtat's assistance to the Palestinian People Unit will also be standing by to assist.

Many thanks and do DSG, the floor is yours.

[Other language spoken]

As Martello already noted, this report focuses on the economic situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

What we see today is extremely worrying.

The prolonged military operation combined with long standing restrictions has pushed the economy of the Occupied Palestinian Territory into its deepest declined on record.

Much of the infrastructure, productive assets and public services have been damaged or destroyed, wiping out decades of progress.

The result is one of the deepest and worst economic crisis seen anywhere in recent decades.

The situation in Gaza is especially severe.

Gaza is going through the fastest and most damaging economic collapse ever recorded.

In 2024, its GDP contracted by 83% compared with 2023, following another sharp drop the previous year.

GDP per capita fell to just $161.00, or less than $0.50 per day, among the lowest in the world.

The destruction of infrastructure, the loss of productive capacity and the displacement of the population have cost long term harm to people and to their ability to earn a living.

The West Bank is also facing its worst downturn on record.

Rising insecurity, strict movement and access restrictions, and the loss of productive opportunities in many sectors lead to a 17% drop in GDP in 2024.

TDP per capita fell by almost 19%.

At the same time, the Palestinian government's ability to respond has further weakened.

Revenue shortfalls, withheld fiscal transfer and falling external support have put severe pressure on public finances, limiting essential public services.

Since October 2023, the fiscal situation has deteriorated sharply, making 2024 one of the hardest years the government has faced.

UMTAD stresses that urgent and state international financial support is needed to stabilise public finances, protect key institutions and create the conditions for recovery and reconstruction.

Our report calls for a comprehensive recovery plan for the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

This includes coordinated international assistance, the restoration of fiscal transfers and steps to ease restrictions on trade, movement and investment.

According to estimates from the UN, the European Union and the World Bank, more than 70 billion U.S.

dollars will be needed to rebuild Gaza.

This figure reflects both the scale of destruction and the long path to recovery, even with strong work growth and generous 8.

But above all, a lasting ceasefire reached in October 2025 is essential for any meaningful recovery.

Humanitarian assistance also remains urgent and cannot wait.

As our Secretary General Rebecca Greenspan said yesterday, we welcome the Security Council resolution on the comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict.

The ceasefire offers a critical opportunity not only to end the suffering of millions, but also to begin addressing the economic damage outlined in this report.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much, Mr Moreno, for setting out the the context and the main findings.

[Other language spoken]

Again, I repeat his title for the record Coordinator of Ungtat's assistance to the Palestinian People Unit.

He will provide a more detailed overview on economic impacts and of course, the challenges that all of this entails.

Mr Lagra, you have the floor.

[Other language spoken]

Good morning, everyone.

As you know and that prepares 2 reports every year, one of them to the General Assembly on the economic coast of occupation and another report to the UN Trade and Development Board on recent development in the economy of the Kuwait Palestinian Territory.

This press conference is about the latter, but I encourage you to also see our report to the General Assembly on the cost of occupation because it gives details about the West Bank.

The situation in the West Bank, The situation in Raza has been catastrophic, as you all know, but the situation is also there in the West Bank and you can see that with some details in our report to the General Assembly, which is available online here.

I will highlight the key points in our report to the Trade and Development Board.

I will start by by saying that history did not start in October 2023.

The current situation unfolding since 2023 is the latest chapter in a 58 year occupation, one of the longest in recent history.

For decades, occupation has suppressed the Palestinian economy and the key mechanisms of separation include.

This is not all of them, but some of them are most important.

Among them are the repeated military operations that shattered the Palestinian infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank.

Most notable and most devastating military operation happened more recently in 2008, 2009, 2012, 20/14/2021 and 2022.

So the military operations that started in 2023 come as part of a long series of repeated destruction of Palestinian infrastructure.

Another suppression mechanism is the block heading on Raza, which has been in effect since 2007.

Since then, entry of goods into Raza was very much restricted and it has been limited mainly to humanitarian and consumer goods.

Importation of critical inputs was banned or restricted.

Importation of critical technology was also very much restricted.

This holds the economy and stripped it of its capacity to produce and grow.

Sir, the separation of the West Bank from Raza and E Jerusalem prevents emergence of cohesive, integrated Palestinian economy.

So what we have are disconnected islands that are not articulated and not complementary to each other.

And the whole Occupied Palestinian Treaty is very small, so dividing it into three regions makes development even much harder.

The 4th important factor is occupation of 60% of the West Bank.

60% of the West Bank, known as the AC, is under occupation.

And that means it.

This occupation deprives the Palestinian economy from its most valuable land, most fertile land, and most valuable natural resources.

They're completely under the control of the wine power.

Palestinian producers do not have access to these resources.

And so the military operations that started in 2023 ravaged the Palestinian infrastructure in Gaza and 'cause also much damage to Palestinian infrastructure in the West Bank.

So the situation is catastrophic in Razza, but is also there in the West Bank.

As a result, GDB in Palestine for the national economy as a whole shrunk to its to 69% of its 2019 level.

It lost 31 percentage points compared to its level in 2019, before the COVID crisis, and GDP per capita reverted to its 2003 levels.

So in 2024, GDP per capita was the same as it it was in 2003.

This erases 22 years of economic progress.

Meanwhile, Gaza's economy shrunk to 13% of its 2022 level.

So because of the latest military operations, Raza lost 87% of its GDP, National unemployment reach 50% and in Gaza unemployment exceeds 80%.

So now multidimensional poverty engulfs all residents and also human development at the level of the hope of Palestine has shrunk by 1/4 of a century.

We lost 1/4 of a century of human development progress in Raza.

We have lost seven decades of human development.

We use 70 years of human development in Raza.

As our Deputy Secretary general said, Palestinian government now faces it worst fiscal crisis in its history.

And part of the reason, well actually all the reasons are too.

So one of them is that as GDP collapsed, the economy shrunk, the tax revenue of the government declined very much.

The other reason is Israel controls 2/3 of Palestinian tax revenue because it collects taxes on Palestinian imports and transfer that money to the Palestinian government.

This gives it the power to withhold these transfers or apply unilateral deductions and it and it does apply unilateral deductions.

These deductions and withholdings since 2019 got close to $2 billion.

Now, $2 billion may not seem a lot in Switzerland or in Germany, but for a small occupied economy like Palestine, that's a lot of money.

In fact, it's about 44% of Palestinian tax revenue.

So if proportionally this deductions were applied to the United States, they will amount to over $2 trillion.

[Other language spoken]

And this is at the root of the fiscal crisis suffered by the Palestinian government.

And this erases progress achieved by Palestinian government in cutting its budget deficit in the last 15 years.

The Palestinian government was very successful in reducing its deficit in the last 15 years despite a very harsh environment.

It's harsh economically, politically and humanitarian needs are great, and also foreign aid has been on the decline.

And yet the Palestinian government succeeded in approaching fiscal sustainability.

But all this has been reversed in the last two years.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, settlements continue to grow.

These settlements are illegal under international law today or by the end of 2024, there were 147 settlements in the West Bank.

They house more than 737,000 settlers.

And also these settlers practise violence against Palestinians, you know, like torch crops.

They prevent them from accessing their land and this happens on both sides.

And in addition to the settler violence, also Israel destroys Palestinian structures built in area sea of the West Bank.

And now you have the settlement growth, violence of settlers, demolition of Palestinian assets and properties.

They create a cohesive environment that pushes Palestinians out of their homeland and thus alters the demographic reality on the ground.

This deep Palestinianization of 60% of the West Bank is contrary to international law.

It deprived Palestinian people from 60% of their most valuable land, and that makes development very, very hard to achieve.

As you know, in Gaza, infrastructure was destroyed, and with the destruction of the agricultural infrastructure and the destruction of the fishing industry, famine was confirmed in October 2010 also rises.

The human capital has been destroyed.

All the schools and universities have been destroyed.

Children have been out of school for more than two years.

And this degradation of human capital will haunt society for many, many years to come.

You know, that made the recommendations for the international community.

They're elaborated by Pedro, and yesterday they were elaborated by our Secretary General, Madame Rebecca Greenspan.

So I'll not go over them here, but we can talk about them in the question and answer station.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much for this.

For this overview, our colleague mentioned Secretary General Rebecca Greenspan, who yesterday presented this report to Ungtat's Trade and Development Board.

Let me remind me and allow you to reiterate the SGS words precisely regarding the way forward and where Ungtat looks and welcomes at the recent Security Council resolution on the comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict.

According to the SG and I'm quoting her words, the ceasefire represents a critical opportunity not only to end the immediate and unbearable suffering of millions, but also to address the economic consequences that are report documents and of quote.

And this underlines really on that's mandate to examine the economic impact and of course our responses and we open now the floor will have to remain within that scope.

With that said, we open the floor, you know the drill name and media outlet before asking we first turn to the room if there's any and I see yes, this is and another name Emma from Reuters.

[Other language spoken]

Appreciate this briefing.

1 is just a kind of technical question please.

You say it's the worst ever contraction.

Can you just spell out what the figures are backing that up in, in terms of the size of the economy and the GDP and clarify if this is for 2024?

If so, do you have any projections as well for for this year?

[Other language spoken]

Can you give us an idea of the range of estimates depending on the level of support, international support?

[Other language spoken]

So in terms of in terms of the contraction and the whole of the OPT, the Palestinian economy contracted by 30% in 2024 compared to 2022, which is the benchmark we are using to see the impact of of the the past two years.

In Gaza, the economy lost 87% of its value of its 2022 value, and in the West Bank, it lost 18% of its value of the 2022 value.

The when we say it's the worst economic contraction that the Palestinian economy faced since we started recording in 1972, even in the second Intifada, it, it, it did not contract on an annual basis for this, this much even in COVID, even in previous conflict and escalations.

Of course, Gaza's economy collapsed completely, and the West Bank economy.

Went back to it's 2014 level in real terms in terms of it will take decades for for Gaza to be rebuilt Even Gaza's GDP prior to 2020 in.

In 2022, Gaza's GDP was $2.7 billion.

Even for Gaza to to go back in terms of GDP, to go back if the conditions allow, in terms of the financing of the recovery, in terms of the restrictions to be lifted on entering of of goods and stuff, it will it will take many, many years for Gaza to be able to be reconstructed.

Even if we pumped billions every year to the reconstruction of Gaza, GDP will pick up in few years to the level it was a 2022.

But it doesn't mean that Gaza will recover because it will take at least the 70 billion of reconstruction and recovery money.

So it will take decades for Gaza to produce more than it used to produce prior to the conflict in order to recover fully.

And that's of course, if all conditions are are in the in the right direction.

[Other language spoken]

Yes, Musa, RCL, Mayor, ETV, According to your report, for a major recovery to be possible, the international community must ensure the sustainability of the ceasefire.

But as you know, a ceasefire has not been definitively achieved.

What does this this mean for the recovery process?

But there has been a reduction in the intensity of the conflicts as a result of the latest initiatives from the international community and from government around the world.

And that's reduction in the intensity of violence is welcome, but still violence continues.

So development cannot take place before peace is established.

And the speed of development will depend on many factors, one of them the restoration of peace and allowing human axis, humanitarian axis for humanitarian goods to enter freely into and into the West Bank.

And not only humanitarian goods, but also inputs for rebuilding.

What we need is humanitarian intervention plus development and reconstruction.

These things are quite possible, but they need action from all sides, from the international community, from the occupying power.

And what happens is, is just it just depends on how much this is restored, how much entry of goods is allowed.

And these are not predictable, but things have been moving in a positive direction in the last few weeks.

[Other language spoken]

It's slow, frustrating, but in the right direction and we hope it continues.

[Other language spoken]

Oh yes, a follow up regarding the agricultural sector, how is the situation now and how many time we need to that process of recovery of this this sector?

[Other language spoken]

I, yeah, it's, I think the answer to recovery of any economic sector in, in, in Gaza, it will be the same because it's the level of destruction of, of all infrastructure and, and agricultural land.

Basically it was mainly around the border with, with Israel and all of that is now it's gone.

So it's the recovery of any of all economic sectors will, will, will take as long as the, as the recovery basically conditions starts where the there is withdrawal, there is the ceasefire halls, there is the reconstruction starts where Gazans can actually rebuild the economy bit by bit.

But the needs it will, it will take a long time, especially that the land is very now there's a lot of rubble on the on the ground.

There is a lot of unexploded ordinance that needs to be removed.

It's so in order to get to a safe place where you can rebuild Gaza, it will also take time and a lot of efforts.

So if I may add something here.

So destruction of the agricultural infrastructure has been extensive.

And this is not only in this round of violence, but also in previous rounds of violence in 2021 and 2022, farm lands were destroyed, agricultural equipment were destroyed, greenhouses were destroyed, the fishing industry was destroyed, fishing fleets were destroyed.

And also Palestinian, even the remaining boats are not allowed to fish freely in the sea of Gaza.

And now we add to that the environmental degradation of Palestinian soil in Gaza and all this destruction, all this trouble, all this explosives which are either they detonated or not detonated, they contaminate the land and they undermine its productivity very much.

Just removing the rubble and cleaning the soil will will take a lot of effort and a lot of money and it needs serious intervention from the international community.

This is why it was not a surprise that famine was declared in Razda in October 2024.

The situation is also there in the West Bank, because, as I said, 60% of the West Bank is occupied and that 60% contains the most fertile Palestinian lands.

And Palestinians are not allowed to grow, they have no access to their water.

And that makes food security very precarious, not only in Gaza, but also in, but also in in the West Bank.

And things are may move towards with the global warming and all these climate issues that affect water availability and crop yield and things like that.

[Other language spoken]

Any follow-ups from the room?

[Other language spoken]

Yeah, Just on the 2025 projections, do you have anything at all to say about how it's looking for 2025?

Of course, even the ceasefires if if it keeps holding basically it started in in October.

So it's the last quarter of the year in the West Bank the the economy started not recovering.

I would, I wouldn't use, but it's basically there was a bit of growth in the first half of the year.

So even if the West Bank is expected to grow around 3-4 percent this year compared to 2024, which was the worst, so it's coming from a low base in Gaza.

The expectation is that 2025, our projections that it's going to be a bit even less than what it was in 2024 in terms of GDP and production.

Just this figure that basically when we talked about why is it the worst economic crisis in the in recent history, Gaza's GDP per capita in 2024 and it's the same in 2025 almost it's if not even less is $161 per person per year, so $161.00.

[Other language spoken]

So we're talking about less than half a dollar per day per person in Gaza in 2024 and in 2025.

It's the lowest GDP per capita in the world currently.

Also regarding this worst crisis, World Bank study and data shows that the crisis in Palestine as a whole ranks among the 10 worst since 1960 in the world.

But for us alone, it is the worst crisis on record.

And that is measured by the how much GDP was lost and how much it will take for the economy to bounce back.

And the World Bank conclusion was reached in 2024.

Now probably things are worse.

[Other language spoken]

I see one question from those connected online, Nick Cummings, Bruce from the New York Times.

[Other language spoken]

Yeah, thank you for the briefing and thank you for taking my question.

I wonder if you could just go into a little bit.

I apologise, it came a little bit late, so I apologise if I'm asking a question you already addressed.

But I'm unclear about the extent of the loss of land and agricultural assets on the West Bank in the last two years.

I wonder if you could clarify that.

And I wonder also if you had a an estimate of the amount of money that would be needed for the rubble clearance in Gaza.

[Other language spoken]

Regarding loss of agricultural land in the West Bank, that has been going on since 1967.

Since 1960, seven, 60% of the West Bank has been under occupation.

Under the Oslo Accord, the occupying power was supposed to gradually withdraw from all of the West Bank, but that did not take place.

So in 1994, the West Bank was divided into 3 regions, Area A, Area B and Area C area has been completely under the control of the Palestinian government or at that time called the Palestinian Authority.

And in Area B is under the Palestinian administrative control, but it's under the security control of Israel.

So sovereignty in Area B was shared and security side was under the control of the occupying power.

But the whole of Area C, which is 60%, has always been controlled by the occupying power and it has been used to construct settlements and these settlements have been growing and growing and growing over time.

So there is nothing new.

Even before this latest round of confrontation, Palestinians were not allowed to invest in Area C, they're not allowed to grow.

They did not have access to land or or water.

There are a new thing.

There were the new development is that since October 2023, the the expansion of settlements have accelerated settlements and have have have accelerated and the number of settlers has increased and the Israeli government has been moving towards did you re you know, annexation of this settlements to Israel proper as we're moving from de facto to de jure.

This is only a new thing.

But but yeah, that that that I can see about this.

[Other language spoken]

If I may jump just quickly in here on just quoting what the Secretary General, Rebecca Greenspan explained yesterday, specifically on the the first part of of your question, Nick.

Agricultural systems have been severely crippled, 86% of cropland is damaged, 83 of our water wells destroyed, 71% of greenhouse gas of greenhouse, sorry, greenhouse damaged and only 1.5% of farmland left to be used, 89% of water, sanitation and hygiene as it's restored.

So this is focusing really again, going back to the scope of of the report, we're aware that of course, everything humanitarian is intertwined with the current economic situation and the basis and the prospects.

And this also of course relates to what will happen.

And this is of course the question that everybody wants to have an answer for is what is other perspectives for 2025 and beyond as at the moment and as we saw from the Secretary Council resolution and how Secretary General Greenspan also applauded, we have the ceasefire as economists say said there is paribus.

If this holds the basis is there from a political side to then of course construct economically, which is what Umtad is calling for.

[Other language spoken]

And we have another question from the back of the room.

[Other language spoken]

My question is about the attacks of settlers.

How how much does it affect the Palestinian economy in general, especially with the increasing of attacks during the olive season?

We saw a lot of attacks recently.

[Other language spoken]

If I may jump in here, we cannot comment honestly on completely these kind of actions nor military operations which go beyond the scope of the report.

As I said, naturally any disruption of the normal functioning of any society has an impact in its economic prospects, be it in the occupied territories or beyond.

So naturally it doesn't help, but it's beyond, I'm afraid, the the scope of what we can measure, we refer to the, to the impact that we're capable of assessing and impacting.

So it, it has to remain naturally along along these lines.

I'm afraid unless, unless, unless we have specific data on it, which I'm not really certain of, but we cannot honestly comment on, we cannot call the economical effects economical effects, not the military, not anything else.

How much does it affect the economics in general, other other studies specific?

Can we can we have put a number on this?

[Other language spoken]

As you said, the settler violence reduces Palestinian productive activities for obvious reasons.

Farmers are afraid to go to their land and to their fields.

And also crops are destroyed or or torched and animals are also affected.

This definitely reduces GDV, reduces like food security.

But the impact cannot be measured separately.

You cannot separate it from the impact of all other factors.

It's very hard to to separate it and put a number on the just the impact of settler violence.

But it is one of many factors that are definitely harming the Palestinian economy and aggravating the economic problems.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for clarifying.

Welcome to the latest additions into the room.

So there are no further questions online.

I don't think online is anybody else.

I can't see anybody.

I hope I'm not missing anybody.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much for attending.

No, we do have somebody.

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Other language spoken]

And we have 4 more minutes of this briefing, so we use the time.

Oh, yes, again, it goes back to Nick from the New York Times.

[Other language spoken]

I just asked for a question about the cost of rubber removal.

Do you have that number?

Had you already given it?

I'd appreciate it if you could give me that now.

[Other language spoken]

Rubber removal, I think we mentioned that in one of our previous reports and we said that if the robot removal proceeds at the same level as was the case in previous episodes, it may, it may take about 22 years or or so, but, but this is all hypothetical.

It depends on the speed of removal.

So we in that reward we used the previous experiences and and that may may be the case this time and it may not be the case.

So it all depends on the effort level of efforts exerted and that depends on the international community and its willingness to shoulder its responsibility and provide adequate funding and also create the, the political environment that allows fast movement in that direction.

But maybe on the, on the just to, to wrap this up, because we mentioned the figure of 70 billion US within the the findings of of your work.

Maybe out of this.

Is there an estimation how, how much of this would be necessary for the rubber removal for instance, which I believe is what what Nick is pointing at.

But I, I don't think there is a separate figure, separate reliable figure just for the removal.

Maybe they are somewhere, but it's not mentioned in our report.

I think the rubber removal also, we have to to not forget it it there's a UN report that said that it might take 10 years to remove the unexploded ordinance in Gaza, which will make the rubber remover even safer.

So it's to make it safe to start with.

It might take even 10 years to just remove the unexploded ordinance and it will take a lot of efforts from the international community to do so.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much again for attending this briefing.

The headlines of course, economic collapse.

We saw the figures both from Ungtat and also mentions to other organisations, reports the World Bank refer to infrastructure, agriculture, fishing industry, fiscal space, income, even impacts on education.

Of course, the basis of it is the current ceasefire and how the situation holds as a necessary basis for the way forward will remain at your disposal for any follow up, more details or anything you need in this regard.

Thank you very much.