Avraham Shavit, president-elect of the Israel Manufacturers Association, said here that Israel’s industrial output in 1974 was 15 percent more than in 1973 and reached a total value of $1.250 billion. He spoke at a press conference sponsored by the American Jewish Committee. Shavit said it was a distortion of the condition of Israel’s economy to describe it as facing an “economic collapse.” This evaluation “is not true,” he added, but admitted that Israel was facing economic problems.
However, he said, these difficulties are shared by all the industrialized countries, citing the impact of inflation and shortages of raw materials as the major problems of Israel and other industrialized nations, Shavit, who arrived here last Thursday for a three-week speaking tour for the Israel Bond Organization, said Israel’s economy was further burdened by a costly defense budget, which consumes 40 percent of Israel’s GNP, and by the need to absorb immigrants.
He said outlays for defense and immigration were inflationary, adding that “these expenditures are like pouring fuel” on Israel’s inflation.
Shavit, who is managing director of Shavit Oven, the largest plant of its kind in Israel, warned that the recently intensified economic warfare by the Arabs was “a threat to the whole industrial world” and not only to Israel. He said petro-dollars and oil were “sophisticated weapons in the hands of not very sophisticated people,” the Arabs. He warned there was a danger that the economies of all industrialized nations would be gravely affected.
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.
