Israel is termed “the most industrialized” country in the entire Middle East in a report issued here today by the United Nations reviewing economic conditions in the Middle East. The report says that Israel is the only country in the area “in which the contribution of industry to the national income was greater than that of agriculture.”
Of all the countries in the Middle East, Israel and Turkey are the only two which rely on income tax to any extent to finance their budgets, the report points out. It emphasizes that industrial investment in Israel has been at a high level. It establishes that 11,500,000 Israeli pounds were invested in 1949 and 17100,000 in 1950. The report describes the situation regarding prices in Israel as “fluid” in 1951-52.
Declaring that during the last month of 1951 and the beginning of 1952 there was speculative investment in durable goods and a marked depreciation of the value of the Israel pound on the free market, the report blames the high immigration rate, climatic conditions, severely reduced agricultural output and shortages of raw materials for this condition.
The main economic problem facing Israel, according to the review, continues to be “the integration of mass immigration into the national economy.” Although economic development has been intensified to absorb the increase in population, the United Nations report finds that “output has not kept pace with the growth in the numbers.”
The review reports that poor crops were harvested in most of the countries of the “fertile crescent”–Iraq. Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria–due to a severe drought last year. Despite this, fruit and vegetable production increased in Israel, and the cultivated area was larger. According to the statistical tables in the UN report, the amount of land under crops in Israel increased from 120,000 hectares at the time of the establishment of the state to 231,000 hectares, excluding 44,000 hectares in the Negev which were prepared for sowing in the winter of 1951-52.
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