Palestine's food industry investment increases during the first half of this year

Head of the Union of Palestinian Food Industries Bassam Walwel revealed that investments in the domestic food industry rose nearly 9.3 per cent during the first six months of this year, reaching about $700 million, compared to only $640 million at the end of last year, Anadolu news agency reported.

Speaking on the sidelines of a workshop on Tuesday about the Palestinian boycott of Israeli products and goods, Walwel told Anadolu that this figure is likely to rise with the strengthening of the campaigns calling for a boycott of Israeli products in the local market.

Dozens of boycott campaigns against Israeli products and goods were launched during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, meeting with great success and continuing until today, in response to the death of hundreds of martyrs and wounded Palestinian civilians.

Reports published in the Israeli media last month said that Israeli food exports to the West Bank declined by 50 per cent over the period from the last week of the month of July until the middle of August, during Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, after the intensification of the popular Palestinian campaigns for boycotting Israeli products.

The Economy Ministry in Palestine’s national consensus government announced, in a statement issued on Tuesday, that it had recently issued licenses to nine new factories for Palestinian investors in the West Bank at the end of last month and the beginning of this month, with a total investment value of $12 million.

According to the ministry, the food, beverage and chemical products industries have constituted the majority of new investments, with 35.9 per cent, while sectors such as textiles, furniture, and mining have dominated the remaining shares.

Manal Farhan, General Director of Industry at the Palestinian Ministry of National Economy, recently said that the popular campaigns taking place in the Palestinian street to boycott Israeli products have played an important role in stimulating the Palestinian economy and attracting local investment, especially in the food sector, while also providing job opportunities as other factories are opening new production lines away from their standard working hours and during the night.

Walwel told Anadolu‘s correspondent that the rise in domestic production of food commodities since the boycott campaigns started nearly a month and a half ago was 35 per cent, also pointing out that hundreds have been employed over the past month in different sectors, like the dairy industry for example.

Walwel confirmed that Palestinian food products cover 80 per cent of the Palestinian market’s needs, pointing to the production of more than two thousand manufactured food products in Palestinian factories operating in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

According to the figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics, food products represented approximately 40 per cent of the Palestinian consumer’s shopping basket during the first third of the year.

Meanwhile, Walwel revealed the existence of Palestinian-Russian talks regarding exporting Palestinian dairy products and some meat products, adding that this, in his opinion, is evidence of the quality of the Palestinian product, which complies with European Quality Standards and Guidelines.

There are currently 12 dairy companies in the Palestinian market, most of which work at about 60 per cent of their production capacity, due to the small size of the Palestinian consumer market and the lack of opportunities for exporting to the outside world.

It is noteworthy that the total of Palestinian exports over the past year has ranged between $750 and $800 million, according to statements made ​​by the Palestinian minister of economy last week, while the volume of imports exceeded $5.1 billion, with a deficit of $4.3 billion.

Israeli exports to the Palestinian market accounted for 70 per cent of the country’s total imports in 2013, with a value that reached $3.57 billion, while Palestinian exports to Israel during the same period only amounted to $550 million.