The monthly direct and indirect losses of the economic sector in the Gaza Strip rose significantly by the end of 2019 to reach nearly $ 100 million per month.
The head of the committee, Jamal Al-Khudari, said in a statement that the crises in the economic sector (industrial, commercial, agricultural and the contracting sector) in Gaza were directly caused by the Israeli blockade imposed on the sector since mid-2007.
Al-Khudari stressed that the reality of the industrial and commercial sector, contracting, workshops and shops is very difficult, as it closed or shrunk by more than 80 per cent of its operational capacity during the years of the siege about 4000 factories, workshops, shops and companies.
He said, "The remaining companies, stores, factories and economic establishments operating at the present time with less than 50 percent of their operating capacity, which contributed greatly to the high rates of poverty and unemployment."
"As long as the siege continues, all the efforts and efforts made, and their importance, will have limited results because of the escalation of crises."
Al-Khudari affirmed that approximately 85 percent of the Gaza Strip´s population of approximately 2 million people live below the poverty line, and this percentage is among the high percentages globally.
International reports indicated that the Gaza Strip will be unviable in 2020, due to the high rise in people living below the poverty line and high unemployment, and the absence of a real horizon to end the basic problems affecting the daily lives of the people of Gaza
He pointed out that the most prominent of these problems are the problems of water, electricity and health sector, the deterioration of the economic situation, and the absence of real development projects that work to fill the gaps and collapse resulting from the siege.
Al-Khudari appealed to the international community to work hard to pressure Israel to lift the siege on Gaza, "because lifting the siege is the real gateway to end Gaza´s economic, health, environmental and educational problems."
