Big Li Planned For German Industry

Northern Advocate, 30 August 1947, Page 5

Big Li Planned For German Industry

(Rec. 10 a.m.) LONDON, Aug. 29. The revised plan for raising the level of German industry provides for an increase in steel production in the combined British-American zone to 10,700,000 ingot tons annually. The plan will raise the level of German industry as a whole by 25 to 30 per cent to the figure reached in 1936, which is described as being neither a boom nor a depression year.

General Clay (U.S.) and Sir Sholto Douglas (Britain), in a combined announcement, stated that increased production was necessary to permit the bizonal area to regain economic wealth, and emphasised that the action was designed solely to harness Western Germany’s potential to allow Germany to contribute her indispensable part to the economic rehabilitation of Europe as a whole.

STEEL LEVEL NEARLY DOUBLE The new plan would not violate Allied plans to eliminate Germany’s war potential and for provision of reparations to qualified claimants. Nearly all industries dealt with were granted increased production ceilings, while simultaneously the amount of industrial equipment available for reparations from the combined zones was sharply reduced. The new level of steel production is nearly double that permitted under the Allied Control Authority’s level-of-industry reparations plan of March 1946, which provided for an annual production not exceeding 5,800,000 ingot tons. OTHER ZONES INVITED

The announcement reiterated the earlier invitation to the other zones to join the British-American fusion. The agreement declared that the revised plan had been drawn up in such a way that it could be assimilated into a plan for Germany as a whole. Neither the bizonal area, nor the whole of Germany, could regain economic health under the 1946 plan, which was “based on specific assumptions that have not been fulfilled.” The new plan envisaged the production of 15 per cent more exports than in 1936 to obtain £500,000,000 for the relief of the burden on British and American taxpayers.

SURPLUS NECESSARY The announcement added that it was necessary for the bizonal area to produce a surplus of manufactured products over internal requirements to permit the revival of foreign trade, and also for trading with the rest of Germany. It is estimated that imports of food, seed and fertiliser sufficient to provide essential diet in Western Germany would amount to about £31,250,000 annually at current prices. General Clay said he hoped the steel target would be reached after the third year. No date had been set for resumption of reparations deliveries to Russia from the Western zones, but new lists of plants available would be reported to the Control Council within three weeks. These would no doubt be allocated between eastern and western claimants.