Ukraine on course for modest growth: World Bank
Ukraine is on track to return to economic growth this year but its pace hinges on how the eastern separatist conflict develops and resolving a political crisis, the World Bank said Friday.
The global lending institution's regional director Qimiao Fan forecasted one-percent expansion for the former Soviet country this year and a two-percent pickup in 2017 after a 9.9percent contraction in 2015. "Obviously this forecast will depend crucially on two things: first, it will depend on how the conflict will evolve in the east. We assume that the conflict will not further escalate," Fan told reporters. "Second, and I think much more importantly, it will depend on whether reforms will continue," he added. "The current political crisis is posing a very serious threat to that very fragile recovery and is posing a serious threat to continued economic reforms.
It is very important in our view that the political crisis is resolved as quickly as possible." Ukraine has been wracked by uncertainty about its future since Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk survived a no-confidence motion in his pro-EU government on February 16. The vote came after President Petro Poroshenko asked Yatsenyuk to step down over the public's seeming loss of trust in his ability to tackle graft and political dominance by a handful of shadowy tycoons that have plagued Ukraine for decades.
Meanwhile World Bank says the Palestinian mobile phone industry lost more than $1 billion (885 million euros) in revenues in the past three years, the World Bank estimated Thursday, citing Israeli restrictions as a leading cause.
Israel limits imports of equipment by Palestinian telecoms companies, while they are unable to operate in the parts of the occupied West Bank under direct Israeli control, a World Bank report said.
As such, more than 20 percent of customers in the West Bank use Israeli providers instead.
"The sector was hindered by years of delay in mobile broadband, presence of unauthorised Israeli operators in the Palestinian market, restrictions on importing equipment, and absence of an independent regulator," said the report, entitled "Missed Opportunity for Economic Development".
Israel and the Palestinian leadership signed a deal late last year to allow 3G Internet.
"However, the Palestinian operators remain at a competitive disadvantage because Israeli operators have 3G and 4G capabilities and are able to attract higher value customers," the bank said. It called for Israel to ease restrictions to allow the telecoms sector to grow.
"The Palestinian telecom sector has the potential to boost the economy and create job opportunities," Steen Lau Jorgensen, World Bank country director for West Bank and Gaza, wrote in the report.