Government of India Trade Mission to the Near East and Africa-Report

By our terms of reference we were asked to express an opinion on the tor ion of the desirability of the appointment by the Government of India otTrade Commissioners in the various countries visited and this involved a eonsideration of the potentialities of the general trade between those countries and India. [...] Budget —Since the arrival of the American financial advisers to the Persian Government a change has taken place in the public finances of Persia the revenue exceeding the expenditure with a tendency on the part of the latter to decrease and of the former to grow. [...] 'Iraq has many advantages over Persia in the production of dates and the most important of these advantages are the concentration of date gardens near Basra the organisation of the industry and the facilities for shipment offered at the port of Basra. [...] Merchants drew the attention of the Mission to the superiority of the packing and make-up of these goods as compared with the packing and make-up of Indian half-to-half checks and coloured goods generally. [...] Apropos of the tendency of merchants to do business in all kinds of products it is worthy of note that most of the Persian merchants in Bushire whom we met during our stay were considerably more interested in the export of opium than the import of piecegoods and very large profits were apparently being made in the opium business and this may eventually stimulate the demand for piecegoods.