Israel has advised the United States that its budgetary deficit will amount to $3.45 billion in the next fiscal year but has not requested any specific amount in U.S. aid at this time, it was announced here today by Amiram Sivan, Director General of the Treasury. Sivan presented the estimated short-fall for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 1980 to Sam Hart, economic attache at the U.S. Embassy.
(In Washington yesterday, Israeli Ambassador Ephraim Evron submitted the figures to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. It is nearly double the $1.785 billion in U.S. military credits and economic assistance allotted to Israel for the fiscal year beginning this Oct. 1. See related story from Washington P. 3.)
Sivan stressed that Israel was not asking for a specific sum but was presenting the U.S. with its economic needs. The U.S. should consider the possibly serious implications if it decides not to cover Israel’s economic deficits, he said.
Ephraim Dovrat, Deputy Director General of the Treasury, explained today that “we merely presented the financing needs of security imports (military hardware) as well as the deficit in the balance of payments. The total of the deficits is $3.45 billion but we have nowhere asked for a specific sum but rather that when the U.S. government determines the size of aid to Israel it would take into consideration the consequence of this analysis, the burden of the Israeli national debts and the problems of our economy in general.”
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