The organizer of a Palestinian investment conference says a Saudi company will invest in a $250 million construction project in the West Bank. Conference organizer Hassan Abu Libdeh says the project would formally be announced Thursday. He identified the Saudi company as Al Ard Al Qabeda. Company official Fawaz Abdel Hadi says the construction will include office and apartment towers, malls and a hotel in the West Bank town of El Bireh, adjacent to Ramallah. Abu Libdeh and Abdel Hadi say the Palestinian Investment Fund will be a partner in the project. The three-day conference begins Wednesday with a speech by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. More than 1,200 business people and government officials are to attend. The first ever Palestine Investment Conference aims at spurring investor interest by showcasing business opportunities and projects. Deputy US Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt, who is leading a US delegation to the three-day event, said President George W. Bush's administration hopes the event will bolster a push to establish a Palestinian state. The conference is expected to draw about 500 Palestinian and foreign participants, including French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and former British prime minister Tony Blair, who is now the envoy of the Middle East Quartet monitoring the peace process. “There are some successful ventures that we want to share with the world,” Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told businessmen who traveled to Bethlehem from the besieged Gaza Strip. Moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was due to open the conference on Wednesday afternoon. The idea of the Bethlehem gathering was launched at a Paris conference of donors in December. The donors pledged 7.7 billion dollars in assistance for the Palestinian territories, but by early May, only 717 million dollars were actually paid out. The World Bank says that since 2000, the Palestinian economy turned from one being driven by investment and private sector productivity to one sustained by government spending and donor aid. “After a good performance in the latter 1990s, the fragile Palestinian economy entered a gradual downward cycle of crisis and dependence,” the bank said in a report published last month. The West Bank's economy is crippled by more than 500 Israeli roadblocks which hamper movement in the occupied territory. Israel set up the barriers after the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in 2000 and says they are necessary for security reasons. Israel recently announced the removal of some of roadblocks, but US and other officials have said far more needs to be done to improve access for Palestinians. “There have been some improvements in recent weeks, but more certainly is needed to tap the potential of the Palestinian economy,” Kimmitt said on Tuesday. There was strong backing for the conference from the United States, with major US companies Intel and Cisco among the sponsors. Jake Walles, the US consul in Jerusalem, expressed optimism about the initiative to encourage more investment in the West Bank. “Countries that have resources and that have an interest in the establishment of a Palestinian state need to put those resources to use now in order to lay the groundwork for the establishment of that state,” he said. Washington has been pushing for Israel and the Palestinians to reach a peace accord before Bush, who last week visited the region for a second time this year, leaves office in January. Long dormant peace talks were revived at a US-sponsored conference in November but little tangible progress has been achieved since then.
