Suchergebnisse

The MSMEs play a significant role in boosting GDP and living standards, encouraging domestic investment, recycling national income and decreasing unemployment rates. Moreover, from the perspective of the individual consumer, MSMEs are particularly well suited to providing products and services that are relevant to the domestic context at reasonable prices. The MSMEs allow for a fast turnover cycle lowering inventory costs, thus creating savings that can be passed on to the customer. It is also regularly argued that MSMEs are a viable mechanism of increasing national exports. Thus, to enhance and support such sector, and to explore the foundation for the establishment and development of such firms within the Palestinian context, it is necessary to explore the various issues and aspects. Thus the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute implemented this project, which produced fifteen various studies. Out of these studies, eleven papers have been sleeted and incorporated in one volume entitled "MSMEs in Palestine; Challenges and Potential". The first chapter of this volume is devoted to the framework of the Palestinian economy. The second chapter explores various current challenges and problems facing the MSMEs in Palestine. The third chapter included in this book presents various international experiences in supporting MSMEs, while the fourth and fifth chapters present the legal environment in the Palestinian economy and the related draft law of MSMEs in particular. The sixth chapter is related to improving the Palestinian investment legislation to the advantage of SMEs. The seventh and eight chapters are in regard to the Palestinian MSMEs and international product standards and WTO requirements. The eighth chapter covers irrigated agriculture MSMEs sector in the Palestinian economy. The ninth and tenth chapters are related to marketing and financing aspects respectively

Enhancing community involvement and municipal performance are among the major issues, which are now under debate in the majority of the developed as well as emerging countries. To do so, various mechanisms may be employed such as using regional indicators, citizens' evaluations, state-based performance indicators, and benchmarking and community participation indicators. Based on questionnaire responses sent to a sample of mayors and council members in Palestinian municipalities, this study tries to fathom a better understanding of the local politicians' perceptions on how community participation in the performance and efficiency of local governments could be enhanced. The study finds that council members prefer to limit their involvement to participating in municipality committees, rather than extending their responsibilities or to having permanent offices in the municipality headquarters. Both council members and mayors of the Palestinian local governments favor indirect communications with citizens, as they consider the idea of enhancing community participation in municipality affairs as potentially reducing their powers. Although they disagree in their preferences with regards to some other practices, both groups show a reluctance to adopt IT innovations to enhance the efficiency and transparency of local government activities

s study is intended to examine in depth the public finance of social budget allocations in Palestine. In order to suggest measures for improvement concerning the social allocations in general and to the child budget in specific. To accomplish this purpose, a depth analysis of social budget matters, trends and issues have been investigated during the different political stages in Palestine, especially in the era of the Palestinian Authority. The investigation process included various issues of public finance such as administrative, policies, and fiscal aspects. In addition, related laws, by-laws, procedures of public social services have been examined and analyzed. Structured interviews were conducted with relevant employees of public and non-profit organizations. Finally an intensive review of the related literature was considered. Public services are provided mainly by central government, however, other quasi government and non- profit organizations are participating significantly in offering social services. Accordingly, this paper included authorities, which play a role in one way or another in providing social public services. Public finance of social Affaires has been defined for the purpose of this study as public social services which are provided through government budget and other related bodies including semi- government institutions, nonT Nidal Rashid Sabri Analysis of the PNA Social Budget 3 profit organizations and other specialized agencies. The public social services are usually supplied either as a free or on subsidized bases. In most of cases, social needs for individuals are non-marketable services such as aids in emergency situations. While in other situations may be considered as collective consumption services. The UN manual of governmental budget for developing countries, classified the functions of the government expenditures into five groups. They are; public services (public management, defense, justice, and internal security) community services (roads, environment, public gardens, research, and other community services) welfare services, economic services (agriculture, energy, industry, transportation and communication), and nonallocated expenditures. The welfare services are divided into four sub-groups, including the education services, health services, social and other services. Therefore, social services are considered as part of welfare services, which include services, related to social security programs, women, childhood oriented programs, handicapped and elderly communities

In spite of the political situation existence, the human development index in Palestine is a moderate as expressed by education, health and income per capita, due mainly to significance of workers' remittances who are working abroad mainly in Arab Gulf states and Northern American which formed about 16% of the GDP (AMF, 2006, and UNCTAD, 2004). Exporting labour is considered a positive aspect due to the substantial received cash inflow from abroad. For example, the human development index in Palestine is about 0.736 and rank at 100 Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1278057 2 out of 170 states, which is higher than the average of Arab states and higher than the medium human development index and it is about the average of the world human development index. The life expectancy at birth for the Palestinian is about 72.9 years, ranking of 64 among the 170 world states; Adult literacy rate of 92.4% of rank of 48 out of 170 states. The average size of the Palestinian family is about 5.8 persons, with a number of 3.3 rooms for the average Palestinian housing unit (UNDP, 2006, UNDP, 2008 and PCBS, 2008). In addition, the Palestinian women are relatively well educated in comparison to other developing countries and has a good status compared to most of Arab states as expressed by literacy rate, education, work opportunities as well as they have a significant share in advanced profession including dentists, Journalists, lawyers, chemists, and civil engineers, while their share in self-employed business, was about 17% of the total businesses in Palestine (PCBS, 2006). The Palestinian economy is affiliated to the emerging economies but it has distinguished characteristics, which may be summarized as follows; First: The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) has no national currency; this situation resulted in using three currencies for different purposes such as exchange transactions, saving and wealth measurement. Having multi currency circulations reduces the efficiency of the Palestinian economy and denying the benefits which may be accomplished from the revenues associated with the use of national currencies such as the seigniorage process.

This paper aims to examine one of the most important issues in the international corporate laws, which is the issue of share repurchases known as treasury shares. This paper investigated corporate laws, stock exchange regulations, research literatures and stock trading volume for repurchase activities. Covering a sample of thirty-five countries developed and emerging markets. The study found that there is an increasing movement in the world stock market towards adopting or deregulating the share repurchase activities, More than half of the selected sample witnessed a change in the related laws (especially corporate laws) of share repurchases during the period 1995 to 2000. Moreover, there is a toleration to use the treasury share in enhancing the stock market during stock crises and extraordinary market price volatility. Based on upon findings, a modal has been suggested and articulated to be considered as a stabilization instrument for stock marketing.

1. Purpose of the study: This study is intended to examine in depth the public finance situation in Palestine including the West Band and Gaza strip, in order to suggest measures for economic development. To accomplish this purpose, all laws, by-laws, policies and procedures of public finance issues have been investigated and analyzed, structured interviews were conducted with relevant public employees and budget and financial staff, relevant questionnaires were used to collect the needed data wherever it was needed, fiscal data for central and local authorities were gathered to cover all periods of the study, and finally an intensive review of the related literature was considered. 2. Public finance may be defined in a general term "as being concerned with the manner in which public services are provided1". However, this definition is not clear in determining the activities of public finance. This is because there are various criteria that may be used to confine the framework of public finance which lead to different definitions such as; *The source criterion, which means goods and services provided through government budget are public services. *The goods criterion, which means that all non-marketable goods and services are considered as public services such as defense and justice. *The consumption criterion, which means that all collective consumption goods and services are considered as public services. *The price criterion, which means that free or subsidized goods and services are considered public services2. However, the above criteria may be considered together in stating public goods and services. 3. Framework of the study: For the purpose of this study a broad definition of public finance based upon the above mentioned criteria, may be considered as follows "goods and services which are provided by government and quasi budget, non-marketable goods and Public Finance in Palestine Nidal Rashid Sabri 5 services, collectively consumed goods and services, free and subsidized goods and services are considered public goods and services". Accordingly, this paper included authorities which play a role in one way or another in providing public services in Palestine beside the public services offered by Israeli military government as an occupying authority. This will cover various issues of public finance such as legal, administrative and fiscal aspects, in order to evaluate to what extend the present situation fulfill the functions of public finance. The functions of public finance may be classified as follows3: * allocation function (price mechanism) * Stabilization function (economic policy) * Distribution function (social policy) However, the public finance in this study should consider both public services as well as the ways of financing such services and other collected revenues by the government. 4. Explanatory notes: Various explanatory notes should be indicated here as included in this study; a- The term Occupied Palestinian Territories (Palestine) means both Palestine. b- A fiscal year such as 1991 means a calendar year of 1991 and/or a year from 1-4- 1991 to 31-3-1992 and-or 1-7/1991 to 30-6-1992 as UNRWA Budget. c.- All financial data in this study are expressed in US $ in current prices to facilitate comparison and analysis using the exchange rates as stated in a schedule presented in the appendix. d.- The budget financial data for local authorities and UNRWA are the actual data, while the government data are the budgeted data which are very close to the actual and usually implemented as stated.

Contents: Chap. 1: Introduction; chap. 2: Currency systems in the Arab economy; chap. 3: Arab central banks; chap. 4: Commercial banks; chap. 5: Arab development funds; chap. 6: Arab insurance companies; chap. 7: Islamic finance and institutions; chap. 8: Other financial institutions; chap 9: Conclusion

Preface -- Forward -- Fundamentals -- Introduction -- Arab political unity -- Arab economic unity -- Arab human development -- Moving towards privatization -- The Significant Role Of Oil Production -- Conclusion -- Major features of Arab economy -- Introduction -- It is a service economy -- Volatility of governments' revenues -- Insignificance of tax revenues -- High unemployment rates -- Increased burden of government's debt -- Surplus current accounts -- Significance of workers -- Remittances -- Conclusion -- Arab business environment -- Introduction -- Business culture in the Arab economy -- Not ease of doing business -- Modest competitiveness environment -- Low transparency -- Average credit rating -- Low ranking of good government -- Modest appeal to foreign investments -- Conclusion -- Arab financial institutions -- Introduction -- Currency systems in Arab economy -- Arab central banks -- Commercial banks -- Arab development funds -- Arab insurance companies -- Islamic finance