the end of 1934. The major portion of the loans granted by the bank was for agricultural purposes.
The Palestine Mortgage and Credit Bank grants housing mortgage credits and in the last few years has concentrated on providing inexpensive homes for agricultural and urban workers. It has built 374 houses in agricultural laborers’ settlements, situated near the larger citrus colonies, and built the first 180 houses in Kiriath Chaim, in the Haifa Bay Region.
SUBURB GROWS APACE
This suburb is growing very rapidly and by the end of 1935 it is expected that there will be almost 1,000 families living in the suburb. The bank has had no losses thus far and arrears in payments amounted to 1.4% at the end of 1934.
Through the loan bank the Palestine Corporation grants credits to small industrial undertakings. These loans, repayable over three to five years, enable the smaller factories to expand their plants through the purchase of machinery, stock and for the erection of factory buildings.
Thus far the bank has not incurred any losses in this activity and deliquencies amounted to 1.5% of the loans outstanding at the end of the year.
A fourth subsidiary of the corporation is the Palestine Water Company, which is engaging in supplying water to ten agricultural laborers’ settlements. The company also operates an American drilling unit in partnership with Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA), through which it has drilled a number of wells in the coastal plain as well as in the hill districts in northern Palestine.
FIGURES IN HOTEL FIELD
The corporation is one of the principal shareholders of Palestine Potash, which is extracting chemical salts from the Dead Sea, and Palestine Hotels, the company which owns and operates the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
The corporation likewise has made an investment in the Palestine Foundries and Metal Works, founded by one of the leading German industrialists. The factory is the first of its kind in the Near East and is located in the Haifa Bay industrial zone.
The officers of the Palestine Economic Corporation are Bernard Flexner, chairman of the board; Felix M. Warburg, honorary president; Julius Simon, president; B. V. Cohen and Robert Szold, vice-presidents; Walter E. Meyer, treasurer; Lawrence H. Marks, assistant treasurer, and Moses A. Leavitt, secretary.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
