Israel is playing a vital role in a global United Nations conference under way in Moscow, where an Israeli is one of only 15 world-acknowledged experts on housing gathered in the Soviet capital to conduct a symposium on planning and development of new towns, it was revealed here today.
The conference, organized by the UN in cooperation with the Government of the USSR, is one of the rare UN parleys ever convened in Moscow. The United Nations selected 15 noted experts to conduct the symposium, which opened Monday and will run through September 7. The Israeli appointed by the UN is Aryeh Douadi, director-general of the Institute for Development and Planning, at Tel Aviv. The United Nations has officially designated Mr. Douadi as the expert representing not only Israel but the entire Middle East region.
The symposium participants are expected to make recommendations on new town and metropolitan development to the Economic and Social Council’s committee on housing, building and planning as well as to ECOSOC’s Social Commission.
High USSR officials are participating in the conference, the official Soviet member of the 15-man panel being N. V. Baranov, the USSR’s deputy chairman of the State Committee for Civil Engineering and Architecture. The sessions are being held at Moscow’s Architects House. The top representative at the conference, delegated by Secretary-General U Thant as his personal emissary, is Ernest Weissman, assistant director of the housing, building and planning branch of the UN Bureau of Social Affairs. Mr. Weissman is a Jew.
(From Tel Aviv, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today that some of Israel’s largest building contractors were officially invited by the Moscow conference to attend the parley and to exhibit their skills in construction and building mechanization. Among the Israeli firms represented at Moscow were Rassco, Meyer Brothers, Federmann Brothers, and Solel Boneh, the construction company owned by Histadrut, the Israel Federation of Labor).
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