FACTBOX: Facts about the West Bank economy

(Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have put the Palestinian economy in the spotlight.

Netanyahu has pushed his plan for "economic peace," saying he will boost the Palestinian economy from the bottom up while negotiating peace from the top down, as a way of working toward an elusive 'comprehensive accord'.

Here are some facts about the economies of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza:

* There are 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and 1.5 million in Gaza. Gaza is sealed off by an Israeli blockade against the Islamist group Hamas, which seized control of the strip in 2007 and refuses to recognize Israel.

* Fifty percent of the governing Palestinian Authority's funding comes from foreign aid. The PA is the main investor and employer in the Palestinian economy, leaving both the government and the Palestinian economy totally reliant on donor aid.

* Israel controls roads, telecommunications, energy, air space and access to land and water. It controls an estimated 50 percent of the land.

* There are about 60 permanent Israeli army checkpoints on main roads in the West Bank. Netanyahu says 15 of these have been removed, or unmanned. Monitoring groups such as Machsom Watch say several main checkpoints have been removed. But there are over 600 passive barriers -- in the form of steel gates or mounds of earth -- blocking access by Palestinians to secondary roads to villages or near Jewish settlements.

* Palestinian businesses are wary of improvements based on Israel's easing of checkpoints, saying these can easily be re-established. Their operating environment remains fraught with unpredictability. Due to the recent ease in movement, however, trade is on the rise in places and as a result there are more jobs.

* The economy of the West Bank and Gaza is forecast by the World Bank to grow 5 percent this year and 7.5 percent in 2011. But it is still far from where the Palestinian economy was in 1999. "Real income per capita in 2011 would still be about 27 percent below its level in 2000," says the World Bank's June monitoring report.

* Netanyahu, currently visiting Europe, said his government was making progress toward reopening peace talks and hoped to be able to do so shortly. Palestinian officials say President Mahmoud Abbas would be willing to meet Netanyahu on the sidelines of the coming United Nations General Assembly meeting, but these would not be formal negotiations.

(Writing by Erika Solomon; editing by Robert Woodward)