Negotiations for a United States loan of about $18, 000, 000 to Israel, in addition to the $24, 200, 000 announced yesterday by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, are nearing conclusion, it was learned here today. The new loan will be given chiefly for power development in Israel.
Commenting on yesterday’s announcement by the Export-Import Bank of its loan to Israel, Ambassador Abba Eban said today: “The agreement announced today will enable a beginning to be made in one of Israel’s most vital development projects. With the aid of the United States Government and the Export-Import Bank we are taking an important step towards economic self-support.”
The recent economic agreements negotiated and concluded between the United States Government and the Israel Embassy have been: In May 1957–$25 million Mutual Security program for fiscal year 1956-57 in October 1957, $35 million (P.C. 480); In October 1957, $7.5 million (Special Assistance Fund); and in February 1958, $24. 2 million (Export-Import Bank).
A statement issued last night by the Export-Import Bank on the loan to Israel said that the credit will go for the expansion of Israel’s water supply, irrigation and other facilities for agricultural development with equipment from the U.S. “This credit,” the statement said, “will assist the undertaking of a part of a four-year irrigation and agricultural development program in Israel.”
The total program, according to the statement, is designed to develop and put into productive agricultural use a large proportion of remaining unused-water resources of Israel, aside from those developed by the Jordan Project. It includes development of additional water supplies, by the drilling of new wells, the gathering of spring waters and the diversion of surface streams, the construction of facilties for distributing these new water supplies to farm settlements and on farms, the expansion and planting of the farm area irrigated and the enlargement of farm production and processing facilities.
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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.
