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Bulldozers & Textiles. Persia will build or renovate 7,122 miles of roads, buying bulldozers, dump trucks, motor graders and portable rock crushers. Later, she will be in the market for other communications equipment, 18 diesel locomotives, 30 passenger cars, $2,250,000 worth of switch stands, signals and rails. She plans to set up modern, automatic telephone systems in 14 towns and cities, build six radio stations. Textile mills at Behshahr and Shahi will be renovated; Teheran's brick plant will be mechanized and three small cement plants (capacity: 200 tons daily) are proposed. Not till a network of small plants for building materials and consumer goods is well established, does O.C.I, recommend hydroelectric plants on the northern slopes of the Elborz mountains, national reforestation projects, and irrigation programs in the desert regions of Lar and Jajirud basins and in. the Zayandeh Rud (see map).
To achieve her plan, Persia proposes to spend a total of $650 million, an estimated 35% to 40% of which will be spent abroad. The bulk of the development cash will come from Persian government royalties from the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. Anglo-Iranian last year paid Persia some $35 million in royalties, but a new pipeline to be built from Abadan on the Persian Gulf to Tripoli in Lebanon, under a deal between Anglo-Iranian, Standard Oil (N.J.) and Socony-Vacuum, is expected to let Anglo-Iranian boost output and raise royalties to as much as $50 million next year.
Would the plan work? O.C.I., which has signed a contract to supervise the plan, was convinced that it would. U.S. State Department officials also felt "pretty optimistic" about it. And other Middle Eastern countries have been impressed enough to start dickering with O.C.I, for similar plans to develop their lands—with soap, DDT, and all.
* American Appraisal Co.; Coverdale & Colpitts; Ebasco Services, Inc.; Ford, Bacon & Davis, Inc.; Jackson & Moreland; Madigan-Hyland; F. H. McGraw & Co.; Sanderson & Porter; Standard Research Consultants, Inc.; Stone & Webster Engineering Corp.; J. G. White Engineering Corp.