British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 483

CHAPTER XIII.

Even these figures are of course not strictly comparable since, especially in the case of the Levant States and Iraq, the 1939 figures included a proportion of items later coming under war supply arrangements. Again, no account is taken of the variations in price levels or of shortages in the exporting countries in commodities formerly constituting important factors in trade with Palestine.

93. Trade before the war with the Middle East countries with which Palestine bad no trade agreements was of limited extent. The export trade is illustrated in the tables following this section. The value of imports in 1938 and 1939 was :

£P. £P.
Cyprus 59,705 86,431
Turkey 78,535 92,457
Iran 114,864 2112,555
Arabia. 8,988 15,353

The import trade with Cyprus and Turkey consisted mainly in foodstuffs; with Iran, in petroleum products and carpets; and with Arabia, in coffee: During the war years there has been a considerable increase in the value of the import trade from these countries but this is attributable to the same factors as operated in the case of the group of countries mentioned earlier, namely the dislocation by the war of normal supply arrangements.

94. The same factors have also affected the development during the war of Palestine's export trade to all Middle East countries, to which the tables below refer. The most notable feature in this development is the increasing preponderance of manufactured articles over other commodities exported. The development of Palestine's capacity to manufacture is sketched in section 4 of this chapter and the growth of the export trade in manufactured goods is shown in section 2. Of Palestine's total export trade in manufactured goods, including diamonds but excluding petroleum products, the Middle East countries absorbed over 41 % . These same countries took over 71 % of the exports of manufactures other than petroleum products and diamonds. These proportions are no doubt affected, as has been Palestine's own import trade, by war supply considerations but at the same time the accessibility of the countries in question to Palestine traders may have significance in regard to the future of Palestine industry.

95. To form any estimate in regard to the future of Palestine's trade with other Middle East countries is a matter of great difficulty and, indeed, any such estimate must for the present rest mainly on conjecture. Leaving aside the question of good-will, not because

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