DAVOS, Switzerland, 29 January 2005 — Ehud Olmert, Israeli deputy prime minister and trade minister, said yesterday he was prepared to turn the Erez industrial park, which straddles the boundary between Israel and the Gaza Strip, into an autonomous Palestinian industrial area.
“We are ready to immediately engage in making a deal with the Palestinians about the Erez industrial park in Gaza, which may become the basis for an independent industry in Gaza, of the Palestinians and for the Palestinians,” Olmert told the World Economic Forum taking place in this ski resort.
“In my capacity as minister of trade and industry, I’m ready to immediately engage in a series of contacts in order to work together with my counterparts on the Palestinian side,” he said.
In Israel, the army chief of staff said yesterday that the park, which lies on a strip of land between Israel and Gaza, would be reopened next week and that workers would be able to resume their jobs. Erez is officially open but not active because thousands of Palestinian workers have been barred from entering since a suicide attack at the beginning of the year.
Israeli owners of businesses there are able to enter, however, as are Palestinian owners aged over 30.
Olmert said in Davos that he wanted to improve the “infrastructure for an independent Palestinian economy that would help improve the quality of life for the Palestinian people”. About 5,000 Palestinian workers are employed at the industrial zone, which comprises more than 200 mainly Israeli businesses.
Also taking part in the session here on relaunching the Middle East peace process was Salam Fayyad, finance minister of the Palestinian Authority. He responded to the Israeli statement by saying that while economic development was extremely important, it was “no substitute for credible, durable and sustainable progress on the political track in this process”.
