RAMALLAH, July 9 (Xinhua) -- A senior Palestinian official unveiled on Thursday that the movement of import has partially stopped in the Palestinian territories due to freezing coordination with Israel.
Palestinian Minister of National Economy Khaled al-Oseily told Xinhua that around 30 percent of the total Palestinian import has partially stopped because it needs in-advance coordination with Israel.
"The affected imported goods include fresh and frozen meat, cars, spare parts of factories and workshops and cement because their importing needs Israeli permissions and approval," said al-Oseily.
He warned that the stop of importing these goods would increase the shortage in the financial avenues that go to the Palestinian Authority treasury and incur more losses because of lower taxes.
Meanwhile, al-Oseily expected that the Palestinian economy will lose 3.8 billion U.S. dollars due to the pandemic and the continuing lockdown to prevent the spread of the deadly virus in the West Bank.
Two months ago, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had declared the abolition of all agreements and understandings reached with Israel and froze all types of economic and security coordination.
Abbas's decision was a Palestinian response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan of annexing large parts of the West Bank and imposing Israeli sovereignty on it. Enditem
