Economy
The economy of Gaza has deteriorated since the end of the Second Intifada due to both Gaza's high population density and the security restrictions it has been subjected to. Israel's closure policy, which was extended following the Hamas administration coming to power in 2007, has led to high levels of poverty and unemployment and an almost total collapse of the private sector which was heavily reliant upon export markets. The population is largely dependent on humanitarian assistance, primarily from the UN agencies.
An easing of Israel's closure policy in 2010 resulted in an improvement in some economic indicators, but regular exports from the Gaza Strip are still prohibited. According to the Israeli Defense Forces, the economy of the Gaza Strip improved in 2011, with a drop in unemployment and an increase in GDP. Lt. Col. Kobi Gertzvolf of the Israeli Defense Forces states that new malls have opened and local industry is developing. Lt. Col. Gertzvolf states that the economic upswing has led to the construction of hotels and a rise in the import of cars. Wide-scale development has been made possible by the unhindered movement of goods into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom Crossing and tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. The current rate of trucks entering Gaza through Kerem Shalom is 250 trucks per day. This figure fluctuates dependent on the level of interference with goods being brought into Gaza from Egypt through tunnels. The increase in building activity has led to a shortage of construction workers. To make up for the deficit, young people are being sent to learn the trade in Turkey.
Read more about this topic: Gaza Strip
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)