The Palestinian Authority has released details of its investments and commercial assets, a move it described as a major step forward in reforms demanded by the international community to clean up its books.
The Palestine Investment Fund (PIF), a holding company created to consolidate Authority funds and assets, published the data in a thick report drawn up with the help of Standard and Poor's ratings service.
The release of the report over the weekend, 29 months after the start of a Palestinian uprising that has ravaged the economy, is among the reforms which the international community wants carried out before an independent Palestinian state is established.
"This is a very important step forward, an element of broader efforts to bring order to the public finance system," Finance Minister Salam Fayyad told Reuters in an interview.
"This is an area that was managed in a highly untransparent fashion and was the cause of many rumours that undermined the credibility of the public finance system."
The report includes financial details of 79 commercial investments controlled or owned by the Authority and valued at more than $600 million.
It also includes assessments of whether the first 10 assets, including a cement company, telecommunications companies and a hotel and casino operation, meet international standards of transparency and respectability.
"There was no point of reference that told people what these assets or commercial operations are, where they are and how they are managed. Now we have a framework for this," Mr Fayyad said.
"This is how credibility is built, this is how Western confidence is built and this is what this programme is intended to address and achieve."
The release of the data is one of the financial changes intended to increase transparency, improve accountability and end corruption under broader reforms demanded by world leaders led by US President George W. Bush.
Mr Bush has demanded the Palestinians overhaul their finances, clean up corruption and choose leaders "not compromised by terror" before he backs the creation of a Palestinian state.
Fayyad said one aim in publishing the report was to show the Palestinian people its leadership was serious about the reforms.
"This in particular will serve to convince people that this programme is for real," he said.
The PIF's role is to ensure transparency and accountability in Palestinian financial dealings, which have been much criticised and prompted allegations of widespread corruption.
Mr Fayyad, who studied in the United States and worked for the International Monetary Fuind for 15 years, has won plaudits at home and abroad for setting about reforms with vigour.
But he has dismissed suggestions that he could fill the new role of prime minister being created by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat under pressure from world leaders. Mr Fayyad said he hoped transparency about the Authority's commercial assets would be followed by openness about the personal finances of people who manage public funds.
Asked if this would include Arafat, he said: "Yes, I think so, absolutely. I don't think there is anyone who works in government who is, or should be, opposed to this."
He said: "It is very important for people to know that their government is run in an honest way and run in a fair way."