The numbers remain fairly consistent across time and place. Economies do not operate well inside an environment of violence and crime. Reuters reports:

Crime Hits Foreign Investment in Latam
Brazilian foreign direct investment inflows fell to their lowest level since 1995, dropping 39 percent from $16.6 billion in 2002 to $10.1 billion in 2003. Mexican FDI inflows have declined from an all-time high of $26.8 billion in 2001 to $10.8 billion by 2003, the lowest level since 1996, A.T. Kearney said.

while the World Bank states:


Four Years – Intifada, Closures and
Palestinian Economic Crisis
An Assessment
World Bank, October 2004
In 2003, the Palestinian economy stabilized after two years of sharp contraction. The World Bank estimates that per capita Gross Domestic Product increased about one percent in 2003. The stabilization occurred against a backdrop of a modest decline in violence. Moreover, there were fewer curfews (the most extreme form of closure) and the Government of Israel’s transfer of previously withheld tax revenues produced a short-acting .scal stimulus. However, neither of these stimuli was continued into 2004; the economy is stagnant once again. After almost four years of the con.ict, average Palestinian incomes have declined by more than one third and one-quarter of the workforce is unemployed. Nearly one-half of all Palestinians live below the poverty line.More than 600,000 people (16 percent of the population) cannot afford even the basic necessities for subsistence. The precipitator of this economic crisis has been ‘closure,’ a multi-faceted system of restrictions on the movement of Palestinian people and goods, which the Government of Israel argues is essential to protect Israelis in Israel and in the settlements. Closures, including the Separation Barrier, prevent the free .ow of Palestinian economic transactions; they raise the cost of doing business and disrupt the predictability needed for orderly economic life. Without major changes in the closure regime and signi.cant progress in the Palestinian reform program to improve the climate for private investors, there is no prospect of a sustained recovery of the Palestinian economy. . .
average incomes in 2003 were some 36 percent lower than their pre-intifada levels.

Violence is bad for Business, Crime is even worse. Latin America potentially possesses a better Wage Base, more resources, less Climate disadvantages, greater Energy resources and Generation potential than any Asian nation, while Labor skills are not substandard to those found in Asia (they are per Thousand, but not in the location of Skilled Labor). Palistinian labor is accustomed to working in the advanced economy of Israel. Terrorists and Criminals do far worse than blow up buildings. lgl