WEST BANK: Olive wood factories increase their production in run-up for Christmas.

Record ID: 560715

  • Title: WEST BANK: Olive wood factories increase their production in run-up for Christmas.
  • Date: 23rd December 2008
  • Summary: ROMELL SOUDAH, HEAD OF FACULTY OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION AND ECONOMY IN BETHLEHEM UNIVERSITY WALKING CLOSE OF SIGN READING "BETHLEHEM UNIVERSITY" (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) HEAD OF FACULTY OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION AND ECONOMY IN BETHLEHEM UNIVERSITY, ROMELL SOUDAH, SAYING: "The economic situation recovered since the tourists are visiting Bethlehem, compared to the past years, but not as it should be. Regarding the situation now, the tourism did not help much because of the checkpoints which block many people from visiting Bethlehem."
  • Embargoed: 7th January 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Lifestyle
  • Reuters ID: LVAC5S8UDFWEYISOZ0QYFAKKQ55W
  • Story Text: Palestinian businessmen in Bethlehem say this year sales of olive wood products are on the rise as tourism picks up.
    More than 250 wood workshops and carpentries in the town of Bethlehem are increasing their production as more tourists are flocking to the West Bank town, revered as the birthplace of Jesus.
    Craftsmen use traditional olive wood to create crosses and other religious souvenirs for the hundred of thousands of tourists expected to celebrate Christmas in bethlehem this year.
    Zakariya Zakariya owns one of the biggest Olive wood factories in Bethlehem.

    "This year there is improvement in tourism, and in selling in Bethlehem. But most of the olive wood industries are cut off from the Jerusalem shops, but inside Bethlehem the sales are good," he said.
    Local officials are also encouraged by the relatively low unemployment rate in Bethlehem, compared to other cities in the occupied West Bank.
    Romell Soudah, Head of faculty of Business administration and Economy in Bethlehem University, said the rate had gone down from 50 to 20 percent in the months preceding Christmas, but the economic situation is still being affected by Israel's barrier..

    "The economic situation recovered since the tourists are visiting Bethlehem, compared to the past years, but not as it should be. Regarding the situation now, the tourism did not help much because of the checkpoints which block many people from visiting Bethlehem," he said.
    Nabil Gakaman runs a souvenir shop packed with olive wood crucifixes and Nativity cribs. Unlike many neighbours, whose shops remain shuttered even in the Advent season before Christmas, Gakaman stuck through the lean years but is not about to declare all his problems over as world recession looms.

    "They say that around million and ten thousand, but the million and ten thousand we don't see many of them inside the Manger Square. I have a shop, a workshop, and an industry of sea shells, I am not selling my productions inside the city, I depend on the export," Gakaman said.
    Trade in the biblical birthplace of Jesus was devastated when a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began in 2000 -- months after a papal visit and millennium celebrations had seemed to lock in a rosy future for Bethlehem as a magnet for tourists and pilgrims in a region aglow with hopes for peace.
    Eight years on, hopes for a final settlement with Israel have faded, like the patched up bullet holes in the Nativity Church which bear witness to a five-week siege in 2002. But a decline in violence has tempted back tourists who no longer fear suicide bombers and gunbattles erupting in the streets.
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