Plans for industrial and agricultural development of Biro–Bidjan under the now five-year plan for the Jewish autonomous region were outlined today by Boris Troitsky, vice president of the Government Commission for Settling Jews on the Land.
Giving further details of the region’s third five-year plan in the Yiddish Communist daily. Emess, Mr. Troitsky said the 100,000 persons to be settled there would be brought in as follows: 10,000 in 1938, 15,000 in 1939, 20,000 in 1940, 25,000 in 1941 and 30,000 in 1942.
The aims of agricultural settlement, he said, would be to create a compact Jewish agricultural population, increase the sowing area of the region and create a source of fodder to satisfy the growing needs of cattle-raising.
Since the general population of the region is expected to be increased by the end of the five years to 200,000, Mr. Troitsky said one of the important conditions for successful settlement of immigrants was the creation of an independent source of food supply.
This, he declared, would necessitate increasing the wheat-sowing area by between sixty and seventy thousand hectares, and the total sowing area by 150,000 hectares, which would result in a fourfold increase in the region’s rural population by creating at least 10,000 new farms.
The industrial development of the region during the next five years, the Government official stated, would require immigration of about 25,000 new workers, who, with their families, would increase the population by between forty and forty-five thousand persons.
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