Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1935-08-01 · 8.1935 · p. Seite 118

B.—THE ANGLO-PALESTINE BANK, LTD. DIRECTORS' REPORT SUBMITTED AT THE THIRTY-SECOND ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS HELD AT THE REGISTERED OFFICES OF THE BANK, 10-12, WAL- BROOK, LONDON, E.C.4, ON TUESDAY, AUGUST 21st, 1934, AT 11 O'CLOCK IN THE FORENOON. The Directors beg to submit the Report and Audited Accounts for the year ending 31st December, 1933. The favourable conditions to which reference was made in the previous report continued during the whole of the year under review. The crops of cereals were, on the whole, unsatisfactory, but the orange industry continues to prosper. At. the end of the year 1933, the area under cultivation amounted to about 175,000 Dunams (about 44,000 acres) as against 140,000 Dunams at the beginning of the year. During the 1933-34 season about 5,450,000 boxes of citrus fruit were exported (including 350,000 boxes of grapefruit) against 4,500,000 in the previous season. Considerable effort in the field of organised marketing, as was pointed out in the previous report, will be necessary in order to maintain sufficiently remunerative prices. The surplus in the accounts of the Government increased during the financial year ending on March 31st, 1934, by £1,281,000 from £1,230,000 to £2,511,000. The circulation of Notes and Coin, issued by the Palestine Currency Board, went up from £2,822,000 on March 31st, 1933, to £4,070,000 on March 31st, 1934. The value of goods imported into Palestine during the year 1933 amounted to £11,123,000—as compared with £7,769,000 in the previous year. The volume of goods discharged at Haifa and Jaffa amounted to 750,000 tons as against 495,000 tons in the year 1932. The amount spent in the erection of buildings, public and private, in 1933, has been officially estimated at £5,601,000—as compared with £2,946,000 in the year 1932. 32,000 persons immigrated into the country (1932: 11,000). Out of this number 3,267 (1932 : 754) belonged to the category of " capitalist immigrants," i.e., those who can prove to be in the possession of £1,000 or more. The new Harbour at Haifa was inaugurated in the beginning of November, and it is to be hoped that the trade of the country will derive all those benefits which it was calculated this additional facility should bring. The considerable increase in the movement of goods in the port of Jaffa has shown the total inadequacy of this ancient roadstead to> keep pace with modern requirements. Various improvements have been decided upon; it may be doubted, however, if anything but a radical solution, i.e., the building of a large 11 8