On November 13, 2007, President Abdullah Gül of Turkey,
President Shimon Peres of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu
Mazen) of the Palestinian Authority (PA) came together as part of
the Ankara Forum activities, a tripartite gathering of Turkish,
Israeli and Palestinian businessmen and government officials.
United by a determination to see our three peoples cooperate on a
project which will greatly benefit the Palestinian people, they had
come to sign an agreement to go ahead with a new trilateral
industrial estate project on the West Bank. For the Economic Policy
Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) and our colleagues at the
Unions of Chambers of Commerce and Industry in all three countries,
the occasion marked the culmination of several years of hard work
and the start of a new phase - that of turning a dream into
practical reality.
The Ankara meeting was the latest instance of Turkey's - and in
this case, specifically its business community's - determination to
help in the quest for peace in the Middle East. Turkey regards
itself as a true and firm friend of both Israel and the
Palestinians, and Turkish foreign policy has repeatedly tried to
bring the two sides closer.
One of the obstacles, of course, is that diplomats may come
together to draft the agreements, but those agreements will not
work unless underlying pre-conditions are in place. There are some
good political initiatives in the Middle East to solve the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such as the Arab Peace Initiative.
However, these initiatives by themselves are not enough to achieve
a lasting peace. It is also important to build Palestinian capacity
and institutions of governance. Since statehood is more than
territory, the facts on the ground must not contradict the process
of state-building, but instead enhance it economically. In other
words, as the president of the Israeli Manufacturers' Association
once said: There is a need to privatize the peace process.
With this in mind, the Turkish private sector started its TOBB-BIS
initiative (TOBB: the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of
Turkey; BIS: Industry for Peace), with the aim of creating more
jobs and greater prosperity for ordinary Palestinians. Turkish
diplomacy and international initiatives increasingly focus on
practical steps and concrete projects. This is where the Ankara
Forum, which has been meeting at regular intervals in the three
countries since April 2005, comes into the picture.
Turkey's approach has a unique dimension based on our country's
success in establishing industries over the last four decades. The
concept behind the project is relatively simple. One of the key
tools used in building an industrial economy in Turkey was the use
of organized industrial zones, providing infrastructure and
facilities for fledgling industries in relatively undeveloped
areas. Turkish businessmen, who trade and invest actively with both
their Arab and Israeli neighbors, believe that trade, investment
and employment are the keys to overcoming the poverty and
underdevelopment which are among the main causes of endemic
instability and conflict. In particular, they share the
international community's aspiration to do something for the
Palestinian people and show that there is a way forward to
prosperity and security for them. Improving the living standards of
the Palestinians is an essential part of the peace process.
Furthermore, the zones will contribute greatly to capacity-building
for the Palestinian people, creating and training new executives,
giving them international perspectives and business linkages which
they do not currently possess. Turning the Arab Peace Initiative
and other initiatives into reality will be very hard to achieve
without institutional capacity-building in Palestine.
How will the TOBB-BIS project contribute to capacity-building? The
original hope, one that remains a long-term ambition, was to create
a new industrial estate at Erez, on Gaza's border with Israel. The
new estate would replace the one transferred to the PA at the time
of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in August 2005. It would offer
employment to around 10,000 Gazans. In January 2006, the Turkish
and Palestinian foreign ministers and the Turkish and Israeli
foreign ministers signed memoranda of understanding. Backed by the
business leaders of all three countries, the TOBB-BIS management
company was established.
The immediate goal now, however, is to build an industrial zone on
the West Bank in the small town of Tarkumiya, near Hebron. Unlike
Gaza, where there was a vacant site ready-made for the project, the
Tarkumiya site will have to be designed and agreed upon from
scratch. As in Gaza, the goal at Tarkumiya remains an industrial
estate where investor companies from Turkey and other countries
will develop labor-intensive sectors. The products will then be
exported to markets in the United States and elsewhere.
The necessary preliminaries at this stage, mapped out at the
November 13 meeting of the Ankara Forum, are agreements with the
Palestinians on the details of the duties, rights and obligations
of the company in charge of developing the estate, and with the
Israelis on the implementation of security and trade facilitation
measures. These talks took place against the backdrop of the latest
efforts to achieve an overall peace in the Middle East - the
Annapolis conference in late November, where the Arab world was
also represented. Though not directly part of this process, the
Turkish initiative to create a Palestinian industrial zone both
benefited from and contributed to a more cooperative spirit in the
region.
What happens next? TOBB-BIS is now at work on a feasibility
assessment which will be used to support its application to the PA
for a license to operate as a developer/manager in the Palestinian
territories. It is asking for "one-stop-shop" status as the
developer company.
With these preliminaries completed, work will go ahead on building
the on-site infrastructure of the estate, along with the off-site
infrastructure and utilities. Part of the production facilities
will be constructed by TOBB-BIS, while investors will also have the
option to rent the land and build their own facilities.
After that comes the work of attracting investors. Here TOBB-BIS
enjoys a substantial advantage. As all Turkish companies are
members of TOBB, companies likely to be interested in helping
develop and invest in the Tarkumiya Industrial Estate are well
aware of the work of the Ankara Forum. Moreover, these industrial
companies are currently riding the crest of Turkey's buoyant
economic performance during the last five or six years.
Furthermore, while an investment in the West Bank presents
challenges, it also offers exciting opportunities to companies
wanting to position themselves better in the Middle East and
benefit from the chance to gain access to U.S. and Arab markets
duty-free.
Initial investments will come from Turkish companies, but once the
project reaches the necessary initial critical mass, TOBB-BIS plans
to attract investors from other countries. There is likely to be a
good return on funds invested at Tarkumiya, but more importantly,
investors will know that they are helping to make progress in
resolving one of the world's most intractable disputes and to give
Palestinians the better life that they deserve.
In addition to this specific business initiative, the Turkish
private sector has also been contributing to Palestinian
capacity-building by other means. To teach Palestinian
entrepreneurs the skills that they will need, TEPAV and TOBB held a
capacity-building program in Istanbul and in several other Turkish
industrial centers. The course centered in part on the organization
and function of the national network of chambers of commerce and
industry, as well as on the establishment and management of
industrial and free trade zones. Those attending included
representatives from different chambers in the West Bank and Gaza,
the Union of Palestinian Chambers of Commerce and the Palestinian
Industrial Estates and Free Zones authority.
Occasions like this are a foretaste of the intensive collaboration
that lies ahead in establishing the Tarkumiya Industrial Estate.
Through the Ankara Forum Turkish, Israeli and Palestinian business
leaders have already forged close links and are aware that they can
cooperate even when the political landscape is beset with
difficulties. This was a practical expression of our desire in
Turkey to be connectors, bringing the two sides together and
working with them toward a mutually beneficial goal.
If all goes well, the intention is that the Tarkumiya Industrial
Estate will not be a "one-off" project but the forerunner of
others, on the West Bank and also, in time, in Gaza. These
enterprises will conform to the practical spirit and the logic of
the Arab Peace Initiative and give it concrete expression. They may
also help to increase its momentum. Not only will the economic
difficulties of the West Bank and Gaza be alleviated, but common
interests, a pool of experienced personnel and wider
capacity-building will be generated - a change that should underpin
the efforts of diplomats and politicians to build a dialogue and,
in due course, a viable settlement. Therefore, we see this first
industrial zone as a prototype for more to come, and perhaps not
only for the Palestinians and the Arab-Israeli peace process but
also in other conflict zones.
The Tarkumiya project is an extraordinary project in the sense that
it requires taking into account the security considerations of
different parties, which increases the costs. With the goal of
still being a feasible business project, these security
requirements are listed as cost items throughout the design of this
project. At TEPAV we hope the time will come when more ordinary
kinds of industrial zone projects will become relatively common
across the Middle East, bringing businesses and prosperity to areas
where there have been none, and show that cooperation between
businesspeople is one of the best instruments for building a better
and more stable world for our children.
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