GERMAN TRADE DRIVE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27225, 17 December 1953, Page 2

GERMAN TRADE DRIVE

Firm’s Big Deal With Persia (Special Correspondent N.Z.F.A.) (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 15. The German drive to find commercial markets in the underdeveloped areas of Asia has just achieved outstanding success in Persia, says the Bonn correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian.” He says the Dusseldorf trading firm of Establech has undertaken to deliver 60.000.000 dollars worth of industrial machinery and heavy engineering goods, and will be paid in cash. The agreement was negotiated in Teheran. The German firm has declined to i take surplus oil in payment of the wide range of goods which will include electrical equipment, rolling stock, agricultural machinery and steel, the correspondent says. One reason for this is that there is almost a glut of

oi] on the German market. Oil wells in the Federal Republic have already produced more than 2.000.000 tons this year—roughly three times the 1945 capacity and more than a third of total German needs. It is not yet known how the Persian Government will find the money to pay for the deliveries made by the Establech Company, nor over what period the payments are to be made. Possibilities being canvassed are that the money will come out of intended American aid or from loans made by the World Bank. The correspondent says the Establech deal will be hailed as a triumph for two particular reasons. It. opens the way for the Federal Republic to secure a dominating position in the Persian market at a time when the

possibilities of considerable American aid are under discussion. It will also give a badly-needed fillip to the German machine-making industry at a time when its order books are unpleasantly empty.

The Establech success, moreover, follows the successful negotiation of German contracts with India, Pakistan. Syria. Egypt and Turkey. It seems probable that the Near East and South-east Asia are going to play an increasingly important role for German exporters since payments difficulties have robbed the South American market of much of its earlier attraction.