The New York Times today devotes a full page of its financial section to Israel’s economic problems. It emphasizes that Israel’s principal economic problems–the gap between consumption and production, the adverse balance of trade and the threat of inflation–stem mainly from the doubling of the country’s population and from the fact that Israel is bordered by hostile states.
“No relief is in sight in either respect,” the analysis says. “In the next three years about 600,000 more immigrants are expected. Meanwhile, the new state will have to give high priority to defense considerations.”
Reporting that Israel is now offering every reasonable inducement to attract foreign capital, the Times points out that “the young nation is also trying to reduce an incredible amount of bureaucracy so that investors will not become enmeshed in red tape.” It emphasizes the fact that 36,000 tourists visited Israel in 1950 as compared with 22,000 in the previous year, but says that the volume was, nevertheless, disappointing.
In an article on the economic situation in the Arab countries, the Times says that the year 1950 brought a marked improvement in general business conditions in Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia, but that there was little change in Jordan. Tiny Lebanon suffered from the termination of the Syrian-Lebanese economic agreement, but she continued to be “reasonably prosperous,” the article says.
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.
