OCR Text |
Show OUR TRADE SMALL. Consul General G. Ble Ravndal, in the following brief report from Beirut,-j Beirut,-j calls attention to the rapidly growing Import trade of Levantine countries, and the small American participation therein: Already the commerce of the Ievant, although etlll in its infancy, is considerable. consid-erable. Turkey alone exports goods to the value of approximately $100,-000.000, $100,-000.000, while her Imports are still more important. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 1906. they were officially offi-cially estimated at $133,792,933. As for the United States, it buys in a year Turkish products to the amount of about $15,000,000 and sells to Turkey Tur-key American manufactures valued at about $1,600,000. Greece has a foreign trade of abokt $50,000,000, some $22,000,000 for exports ex-ports and $2S,000,000 for imports. In this trade the United States participated participat-ed in 1907 to the extent of $5,205,476 in imports from Greece and $1,393,117 in oxports to Greece. Egypt annually exports merchandise to the value of $125,000,000, while her imports amount to $120,000,000. The United States takes about $3,000,000 of Egypt's exports, and furnishes some $1,225,000 of her imports (according to Egyptian returns, $3,000,000). Persia's annual exports amount to about $27,000,000, her Imports to some $35,000,000. American shipments to Persia may be briefly described as nlL Statistics, while usually dry reading, often aro exceedingly eloquent and in this particular relation they impressively impres-sively announce., to the world the fact that the total import trade of the near east of $333,000,000 (Turklstan, Afghanistan and Baluchistan not included), in-cluded), the United States, dividing honors with the United Kingdom as the greatest exporting nation in the world, furnishes but $7,000,000, or -per cent. To an American this showing is slightly disconcerting, especially when It is remembered that American goods, if proper heed is paid to sailings, may now reach the ports of the Levant as quickly as goods shipped to these markets mar-kets from Hamburg, Liverpool, and Antwerp, and at approximately the same freight rates. Not only Is the present prize worth competing for, but the future holds out much greater rewards. re-wards. As things stand, Egypt's Imports Im-ports approach those of Turkey in Europe and Turkey and Asia combined, combin-ed, but in another generation Mesopotamia, Mesopo-tamia, alone, a minor portion of Asiatic Turkey (not Including Anatolia, for example, with all its unexplored and unexplolted natural resources) probably prob-ably will compare favorably with Egypt of the present time as commercial commer-cial factor. |