A three-day Palestine Investment Conference opened in Bethlehem yesterday with the participation of 500 Arab and foreign investors and businessmen. The participants will have an opportunity to consider the various investment opportunities in the Palestinian territory, including 200 project proposals prepared in advance of the conference at an estimated cost of $2 billion.

Among those participating in the conference was the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Muhammad bin Hamdan bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the Jordanian minister of trade and industry, Aamer al-Hadidi, Russian deputy foreign minister Alexander Sultanov, US Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmit, and representatives from China, the European Union and the World Bank. Saudi companies sent two representatives with non-Saudi passports.

In his inaugural statement at the conference, President Mahmoud Abbas stressed that security and economic development are the road to peace and without them peace cannot be attained. Instead, there will be frustration, extremism, and destruction.

al-Hayat al-Jadida, Palestinian Territories, May 22, 2008; al-Hayat, London, May 22, 2008