During the first quarter of 1985, Israel’s trade deficit was 24 percent less than it was during the first three months of last year, it was reported by Uri Oren, an Israeli consul and government economic spokesman in New York. The decline amounted to a drop of $140 million, Oren said.
In a statement accompanying the release of foreign trade statistics for the first quarter of 1985, Oren said:
“Based on the trade figures for January, February and March, we are cautiously optimistic that Israel will be able to achieve its goal of reducing its negative balance of trade by 20 percent or $500 million for all of 1985.” Last year, he noted, Israel reduced its trade deficit by $1.02 billion — from $3.52 billion in 1983 to $2.50 billion in 1984.
The total trade deficit for the first quarter of 1985 was $451 million, compared to $591 million during the same period in 1984, Oren said. He attributed the decline to lower imports while exports remained at about the same level as last year.
For the first quarter of 1985, imports to Israel fell by 7 percent compared to the same period a year ago. At the same time, exports were 0.3 percent less — $1.475 billion during the first quarter of 1984 and $1.470 billion during the first three months of 1985.
The decline in imports during the first quarter of 1985 was mainly due to a significantly lower volume of imports of durable goods, which fell 16 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the Israel economic spokesman. For the first quarter of 1985, he noted, automobile imports fell 61 percent compared to the same period last year.
There will be no Daily News Bulletin dated May 27, Shavuoth.
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.
