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Second Round of Results: OQR PalTrade Study on Industrial Sectors in Gaza.
Monday, May 16, 2011 in Office of the Quartet Representative
The Office of the Quartet Representative (OQR) commissioned PalTrade, a Palestinian trade and research organization, in November, 2010 to conduct a study tracking changes in major industrial sectors in Gaza following the Israeli decision in mid-2010 to ease economic restrictions on the Gaza Strip. The study surveys 188 randomly selected manufacturing companies and consists of three bimonthly surveys examining business indicators covering sales, employment, capacity utilization and export readiness from January to May, 2011. These indicators are also compared against reported figures for previous years. This note summarizes the second round of survey results focusing on the period from June, 2010 to March, 2011. For more background information on the study itself and the first round of results mainly covering the second half of 2010, kindly review the first OQR-PalTrade results published on the OQR website on 11 April, 2011 as well as the PalTrade website. A final and comprehensive report will be prepared in June, 2011 including the third round of results generated in May, 2011.
Overall Results - The manufacturing sector in Gaza continues to experience improvements in sales in the first quarter of 2011 building on the growth witnessed during the second half of 2010. Average sales increased by 4 percent from January to March, 2011 and by 31 percent from June, 2010 to March, 2011. The top three sectors experiencing the largest first quarter growth in 2011 were garments, metal, and food while the top three growth sectors in the second half of 2010 were food, handicrafts and chemicals.These changes are likely to be the result of the expanded entry of industrial inputs from Israel. Average employment levels in manufacturing increased slightly following mid-June, 2010. The recent uptick in average sales notwithstanding, March, 2011 sales figures represent only 60 percent of the level of sales in June, 2005. A large proportion of manufacturing companies in Gaza (60 percent) are ready to export within one month of receiving approval. The major business constraints continue to be the unreliable supply of electricity, the unpredictable availability of raw materials and extremely limited access to export markets.
To view the report in full, CLICK HERE
