AGL 37.65 Increased By ▲ 0.08 (0.21%)
AIRLINK 132.80 Increased By ▲ 0.30 (0.23%)
BOP 5.60 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.71%)
CNERGY 3.80 Increased By ▲ 0.03 (0.8%)
DCL 8.74 Decreased By ▼ -0.13 (-1.47%)
DFML 40.80 Decreased By ▼ -0.20 (-0.49%)
DGKC 88.69 Decreased By ▼ -1.47 (-1.63%)
FCCL 35.40 Increased By ▲ 0.32 (0.91%)
FFBL 66.15 Decreased By ▼ -0.35 (-0.53%)
FFL 10.36 Increased By ▲ 0.21 (2.07%)
HUBC 108.85 Increased By ▲ 2.45 (2.3%)
HUMNL 14.45 Increased By ▲ 1.05 (7.84%)
KEL 4.85 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.21%)
KOSM 7.05 Increased By ▲ 0.20 (2.92%)
MLCF 42.56 Increased By ▲ 0.76 (1.82%)
NBP 59.70 Increased By ▲ 1.12 (1.91%)
OGDC 184.80 Increased By ▲ 3.55 (1.96%)
PAEL 25.60 Decreased By ▼ -0.10 (-0.39%)
PIBTL 5.90 Increased By ▲ 0.07 (1.2%)
PPL 148.60 Increased By ▲ 0.20 (0.13%)
PRL 23.15 Decreased By ▼ -0.07 (-0.3%)
PTC 16.55 Increased By ▲ 1.31 (8.6%)
SEARL 68.30 Decreased By ▼ -0.49 (-0.71%)
TELE 7.30 Increased By ▲ 0.06 (0.83%)
TOMCL 35.70 Decreased By ▼ -0.30 (-0.83%)
TPLP 7.55 Increased By ▲ 0.15 (2.03%)
TREET 14.24 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
TRG 50.90 Increased By ▲ 0.05 (0.1%)
UNITY 26.45 Increased By ▲ 0.05 (0.19%)
WTL 1.21 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
BR100 9,779 Increased By 11.4 (0.12%)
BR30 29,771 Increased By 370.6 (1.26%)
KSE100 92,112 Increased By 174.1 (0.19%)
KSE30 28,730 Decreased By -13.6 (-0.05%)

DUBAI: The Israel-Hamas war has devastated the economies of both the embattled Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) chief said Sunday, adding that only “durable peace” would improve the outlook.

“The Palestinian economy’s dire outlook is worsening as the conflict persists,” managing director Kristalina Georgieva told the World Governments Summit in Dubai.

“Only a durable peace and political solution will fundamentally change it”.

“Economically, the impact of the conflict has been devastating,” Georgieva said.

Palestinians brace for Rafah assault as Israel promises evacuation plan

In the war-ravaged coastal territory, economic activity dropped 80 percent from October through December compared with a year earlier, the IMF chief said.

In the West Bank, the drop was 22 percent, she added.

The larger Palestinian territory has been hit hard by Israel’s withdrawal of 130,000 work permits, the proliferation of checkpoints that has heavily disrupted transportation, the loss of tourism, being cut off from Gaza and Israel’s withholding of tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority.

The Gaza Strip has been under intense Israeli aggression for over four months, in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel.

Hamas’s attack resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel vowed to destroy the Palestinian group and launched air strikes and a ground offensive that have killed at least 28,176 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry.

Georgieva spoke at the opening of the World Government Summit, an annual gathering of top business and political figures in the United Arab Emirates, which runs until Wednesday.

Beyond the Palestinian territories, the Israel-Hamas war has also hit the tourism sectors of neighbouring countries such as Egypt and Lebanon, she said.

Meanwhile, attacks on commercial shipping by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which the group says are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, is leading to “rising freight costs and reduced Red Sea transit volumes (which are) down by nearly 50 percent this year in our PortWatch data,” Georgieva said in her speech.

For the Middle East and North Africa region as a whole, GDP growth is expected to improve from last year but will likely fall below earlier IMF projections, partially because of the Israel-Hamas war, the fund reported in its latest forecast last month.

The IMF now sees the economies of the region expanding 2.9 percent this year, a decrease of half a percentage point from its October forecast.

Comments

Comments are closed.