Palestine is usually used to see American visitors coming in the spring. This year, however, the flood of Americans into Palestine has been continuing all summer long and is promising to grow even now with the coming of winter.
The Americans coming now to Palestine are not the usual type of tourists. Almost all of them come with a certain purpose; with a purpose to explore the possibilities of settling in this country or of investing their capital in Palestinian enterprises. It has been assumed in the United States— and this assumption is partly justified,— that Palestine is the only prosperous corner of the word to-day where no crisis is felt; so that many Americans are stimulated by this assumption to come here and investigate whether there is opportunity here for any profitable investments.
Upon their arrival in Palestine and after spending some weeks in studying the industrial and commercial possibilities of the country, most of them find that there is no wide field for large investments. The opportunities they see for sale investment, so far, are in buying orange groves and in real estate; but they are in a predicament when trying to find other fields of investment, because Palestine is still not an industrial country.
The influx of Americans who come here with the intention of investing their capital is therefore responsible for the boom in real estate and in the citrus industries. Prices in real estate in Tel-Aviv have now perhaps reached the highest point possible and experts who have had real estate experience in America are afraid that the fate of the real estate boom in Tel-Aviv will eventually be the same as in Miami or any American city where people so lost their fortunes.
Such is not the case with the citrus industries here, however. Oranges and grapefruit are still a good article of export from Palestine for England, Germany, Holland and the Scandinavian countries. Even if the recent conference in Ottawa has resulted in imposing special duties upon Palestinian oranges in Great Britain the orange industry in Palestine is still a profitable enterprise.
Since the field for investment of capital, aside from the orange and building industries, is still limited, the Executive of the Jewish Agency here is now engaged in making a special study to discover what other industries can be developed in the country. It is believed here that Palestine can be the center of a large number of small industries which can find a good market in the entire East. Some small industries, like knitted goods and shoes, are already finding their way from Palestine to Syria, Iraq and even to Persia. It is therefore hoped that the study which is now being made by the Executive of the Jewish Agency may lead to the eventual development of a number of small industries which do not exist at present in Palestine but which could be organized under the present circumstances, when American capital is looking for its outlet here.
Meanwhile, the Americans who are coming here with their capital are
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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.
