The holiday season is the season that all merchants in Palestine, and in Jerusalem in particular, await, as purchasing power and desire increase and the markets are crowded with thousands of buyers of holiday-related goods, such as food supplies and clothing.


In Jerusalem, there are many clothing stores in the Old City, such as the Bab Khan al-Zayt market, Al-Attarin, Al-Wad, and its surroundings, such as Salah al-Din Street, Sultan Suleiman Street, Al-Isfahani Street, Ibn Sina Street, and Al-Zahra Street.


About 3 years ago, conditions changed for clothing store owners and merchants in Jerusalem. As the occupation authorities continued to impose taxes in order to kill and stifle the Jerusalem trade sector, new problems emerged after the “Corona” pandemic, as new purchasing horizons opened for the Jerusalemite consumer, including remote shopping. When the Beit Al-Maqdis Agency correspondent conducted a group of interviews with a number of Jerusalemite merchants, most of them pointed to a state of stagnation and depression that Jerusalem had never witnessed before, the most prominent of which was a mass trend of consumers to buy from the Chinese “Shein” platform, where the prices are low and the quality is low.


The reasons for the Jerusalem trade stagnation, in the clothing sector specifically, do not stop there, as many Jerusalemite merchants confirmed that consumers in Jerusalem are also heading to the huge Zionist commercial complexes in the west of occupied Jerusalem, where dozens of international agencies are located, which are also present in the Jerusalem market. Palestinian, at much lower prices than those complexes.


This dangerous reality that threatens the clothing trade sector in occupied Jerusalem, prompts us as Jerusalemites to question the role of the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce in strengthening the steadfastness of the Jerusalemite merchant...??


This room, whose vice president participates with the occupation municipality in a joint economic activity, so what can be expected from it?!


This question goes beyond the Chamber of Commerce in Jerusalem, to reach the Ministry of Jerusalem of the Palestinian Authority, whose minister and staff do not stop receiving delegations and holding meetings, and whose owners only go out, as the proverb says, “to summer resorts in Jericho.”