A credit of $5,000,000 earmarked for the purchase in the United States of telecommunications equipment for Israel has been extended to the Israeli Government by the Export-Import Bank, a spokesman for the Bank said today. This sum brings to $51,000,000 the amount already advanced on the Bank’s $100,000,000 loan.
The equipment will be used to establish radio-telephone and radio-telegraph service with the United States and other countries and for the expansion of local telephone facilities in Israel. Israel proposes during the next five years to replace most of the manually-operated telephone exchanges In Israel by automatic multi-exchange systems. The new exchanges will permit service to 25,000 new subscribers, an increase by more than 150 percent. The major cities will be linked by radio-telephone multi-channel circuits.
Israel’s new International service will have contacts not only with America but also with Switzerland, Prague, and possibly Moscow. Now the only Israeli-U.S connection is via Tangiers, with the exception of a British-owned submarine cable. The Ex port-Import Bank was informed that Israel suffers from a serious deficiency in telephone installations, particularly handicapping in government offices. Only 12,000 telephones are now in service in Israel, mostly for commercial and government uses.
Meanwhile, Israeli Ambassador Eliahu Elath today signed contracts for $16,000,000 in credits from the Export-Import Bank. The credits were previously announced and provide for the purchase here of bus and truck chassis, materials for housing, and telecommunications equipment for Israel.
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