Ramallah (INA) - The Monetary Authority issued the results of the Palestinian Monetary Authority's Business Cycle Index for the month of May 2017, which showed a clear divergence in the direction of the index's movement between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. While the Gaza Strip index witnessed a wide deterioration, the West Bank index showed Significant improvement, which ultimately led to an improvement in the value of the overall indicator. The Monetary Authority stated that the West Bank index continued to improve during May, and left the negative zone for the first time since the beginning of the year, rising clearly (from -2.2 points to 14.2 points). This increase may result from the improvement in the indicators of all industrial activities. The most prominent increases were in the furniture activity (from -1.3 points to 4.3 points), followed by the clothing industry index (from -0.9 points to 2.6 points), and the engineering industries index (from -2.5 points to 0.3 points), while the rest of the industrial activities increased. Less than that. This clear improvement in the West Bank index comes in light of a significant increase in the level of production and sales, according to what was indicated by the owners of industrial establishments who were surveyed. In addition, the owners of the establishments expressed high expectations about both the level of production and employment in the near future, which, as a result, enhanced the value of the overall index. On the contrary, the Gaza Strip index continued to deteriorate, dropping from about -19.3 points to about -38.6 points, which is its lowest level in months. This came as a result of a significant decline in the indicators of most industrial activities, led by the decline in the food industry index (from 1.7 points to -5.1 points), followed by the construction industries index (from -4.4 points to -9.9 points), and the engineering industries index (from -5.0 points). point to -10.0 points), in addition to the indices of the apparel industry and the paper industry declining to a lesser degree. On the other hand, the increases in the indicators of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, the plastics industry, and the furniture industry came to a limited extent. It is noted that the indicators of all industrial activities (with the exception of the food industry) remained in the negative zone for the third month in a row, in addition to the fact that the overall index in Gaza remained in the negative zone for more than three years, which reflects the continuation of the deteriorating political and economic conditions in the Strip. Siege and closure, slow reconstruction process and others. In the same context, the owners of establishments in Gaza pointed to the deterioration of the volume of sales during the month, and the accumulation of inventory, which resulted in an exacerbation of the pessimistic view about the near future. It is noteworthy that the Palestinian Monetary Authority's Business Cycle Index is a monthly indicator concerned with monitoring fluctuations in Palestinian economic activity by monitoring the performance of industrial activity, particularly fluctuations in production and employment levels, and their repercussions on the economy as a whole. The maximum value of the indicator is positive 100 points, while the minimum value is negative 100 points. A positive value indicates that the economic conditions are good, while negative values indicate that the economic conditions are bad. As for the value approaching zero, it indicates that the conditions are the same, and that they are not about to change in the near future. (End) kh kh / h p
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