"ملف 36/43 B استيراد بضائع أقمشة القطن والصوف من المملكة المتحدة إلى البحرين" [و‎‎١‎٣‎٣] (٣٩٤/٢٦٥)

\f
Minutes of Pood Meeting held on
Thursday, 28th September, 1950.
The meetting was called in order to discuss a complaint
which was made by owners of gardens to the effect that the
sale of Bahrain dates was being adversely affected by the
Government granting barter and excemption from customs duty
upon imported.dates, which come from Basra.
The matter was very fully discussed. Between 75,000
and 90,000 Ratali (84 lbs) of imported dates are required
each year to provide for local consumption. The normal
Bahrain date crop provides sufficient dates for 3-6 months
of the year. Dates are one of the main foods of Bahrain and
are used by people of all classes, rich and poor. Any change
in the present arrangement, which is in fact in the nature of
a subsidy by the Government, costing the Government about one
lakh a year, intended to encourage the import of dates and to
keep the price of dates and the cost of living low, would
result in higher prices for Bahrain dates. The persons who
would benefit by this are few and those who benefit from dates
being cheap are almost the whole population of the country.
It was unanimously decided that for the present there should
be no change in the existing arrangement. If large quantities
of Basra dates arrived the question of then allowing the export
of local dates might be considered.
Other matters which came up for discussion were, the
export of wood, for building. It was agreed that merchants
holding large stocks of wood would be allowed to export wood
to Saudi Arabia where the demand is high.
There was a discussion about meat prices, it was agreed
that the situation was unsatisfactory because the meat business
was a close company consisting of brokers and butchers who now
and in the past control the meat sales. The committee decided
to take action against the butchers if they failed to lower
prices in accordance with the recent large imports of meat.
Matters of general interest were considered including
the effect of the order announcing the increased rice ration,
from 6 to 10 lbs. per month per head, which it is confidently
expected will cause a sharp drop in the price of privately
owned rice in the bazaar. There were comments upon the
criticism of the committee by merchants who resented the
reduction in maximum profits from 25$ to 10$. It was learned
that since the news of the Korea war was better more steady
prices ruled in the bazaar and the rush to buy goods for
hoarding had stopped.
The meeting closed at about 11.45 a.m., the chairman
having left somewhat eqrlier.