Palestine’s industrial achievements must remain secret until the war is won, but the general features that can already be reported testify to the skill and energy devoted to wringing every possible use out of the available resources, it is stated in the current Foreign Commerce Weekly, official organ of the Department of Commerce.
“The Dead Sea is yielding up its ages-old accumulation of chemical salts,” the article says, “as two plants draw the sea water into solar evaporation pans, where the rate of evaporation is speeded up by a secret process involving the addition of coloring matter to the water. Bromine, magnesium, potash, and other chemicals are then produced. Another source of heavy chemicals is the oil refinery at Haifa, Palestinian terminus of the transdesert pipe line from Iraq. Besides serving the air and naval services in the eastern Mediterranean, this refinery turns out by-products absorbed by the growing chemical industry.”
Research workers at the Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus at Jerusalem have initiated a new pharmaceutical industry, the Commerce Department publication reports. It adds that workshops have sprung up all over Palestine, but especially in the Haifa Bay industrial area, and, starting practically “from scratch” with little outside aid, there has been built up a most important mechanical-repair and parts-manufacturing industry. “At a recent exhibition of new Palestine products, some 800 different kinds of manufactured goods were displayed,” the article concludes.
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.
