BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The premier in Ramallah Salam Fayyad on Thursday welcomed the call to donors to give the Palestinian Authority $1 billion, but said the funds must be received swiftly to ease the deepening financial crisis.
At a donors' conference in Brussels on Wednesday, the chair of the Ad-Hoc Liaison Committee on Palestine, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, urged donors to pledge $1 billion to fill the PA's budget deficit.
Fayyad told Voice of Palestine radio that it was crucial that at least half of the money was transferred quickly to reduce the fiscal crisis.
The Palestinian Authority is relying on foreign aid to cover a 2012 budget deficit projected to reach $1.1 billion, but most donor countries have not fulfilled their pledges.
Palestinian officials say more than $150 million of US aid is frozen. The US cut off some funding to the PA after President Mahmoud Abbas sought membership of the United Nations.
The World Bank said in a report released ahead of the meeting in Brussels that the Palestinian Authority had received just over half of the funds it needs.
Mariam Sherman, the World Bank's director for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, called on donor countries to meet their pledges to help stabilize the Palestinian economy in the short term.
The report said a slowdown in growth in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Palestinians have limited self-autonomy, "can be attributed to falling donor support combined with the uncertainty caused by the Palestinian Authority's fiscal crisis, as well as lack of significant new easing of Israeli restrictions".
PLO official Hanan Ashrawi addressed the conference and expressed the Palestinian people's gratitude for international assistance, but urged donors to end Israeli restrictions on economic development.
"The United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund have all submitted reports recognizing the Palestinian Authority’s remarkable achievements in the economy and development sectors.
"These reports also unanimously agree that the Israeli occupation and its illegal punishing measures is the single most important obstacle to Palestinian economic prosperity and stability."
She added: "The goals driving international assistance will only be possible when this occupation ends."
In a 2011 study, the PA found that in 2010 the Israeli occupation cost the Palestinian economy $6.897 billion, some 93.3 percent of the Palestinian GDP.
UN special envoy Robert Serry, in his report to the committee, said: "Restrictions on Palestinian movement and access continue to compromise economic growth, undermine livelihoods, hinder access to basic services including education, health and water supply, and contribute to conditions whereby a continuation of external aid is required."
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