Bank Explains Nazi-palestine Trade Set-up

A statement explaining the barter agreement reached this week between Germany and Palestine was issued here today by the Anglo-Palestine Bank, describing the details of the arrangement. The statement reads:

“The export of oranges from Palestine to Germany during the forthcoming season will probably be in the neighborhood of one and a quarter million boxes to a value of about £600,000.

“The German authorities have approved arrangements under which payment will be made in the following way. German importers of oranges and grape-fruit may pay the purchase price in marks into an account to be opened with the banking firm of Messrs. M. M. Warburg & Co. at Hamburg. German exporters to the Far East, British India and Egypt, may accept payment as to half the invoice value of their ordinary exports in those ‘orange marks.’ The counter-value of those orange marks is to be remitted by the importers in the aforementioned countries to the Anglo-Palestine Bank Ltd., of London and Tel Aviv, in order to be paid over by the latter to the orange exporters.

“This arrangement holds good for the present for an amount of 4,000,000 marks, and it will, if it works satisfactorily, probably be extended to cover the whole volume of oranges exported. There is no requirement that the exports, the proceeds of which go towards the payment of the oranges, should be zusaetzlich (i.e., in addition to the normal volume).

“It would not be correct, as has apparently been done in Germany, to describe the arrangement as a barter agreement. It is a triangular arrangement under which devisen derived from the normal export of goods to the Far East and other overseas countries will be used for the purpose of paying for oranges imported from Palestine.”