The Marshall Plan Marches On

A fortunate handful of West Berlin companies, ranging from a construction firm to a small hotel, last week received a total of $16 million in ten-year loans. By Continental standards, the companies will have to pay a surprisingly low (4%) interest rate--but the real surprise was the source of the loan. The money came from the Marshall Plan, which ended a decade ago.

Though most of the $13.6 billion in economic assistance that the U.S. pumped into Asia and Europe disappeared long ago, remnants of the aid are still at work. Part of Japan's $600 million leftover is being used to modernize the country's rail systems; most of Italy's $71 million in old funds is being spent for public housing; Britain uses its $2,800,000 balance for economic aid to its former colonies. These nations managed to keep Marshall Plan funds working by selling in their own countries their share of the $12 billion in equipment and commodities that the U.S. supplied in aid, then reinvesting the proceeds in worthwhile ventures.

No nation has worked the trick quite so well as West Germany, where the funds still play a vital role, particularly in harried Berlin. This year $120 million will be channeled into loans for Berlin businesses; another $210 million will be used to help Germany's ailing shipbuilders, to finance sales of German goods to underdeveloped countries and to provide $85 million in new credit for the capital-short German economy. Germany has made its Marshall Plan money work particularly hard from the very first by setting up a special Bank for Reconstruction to administer most of the funds. By judicious lending and reinvestment, the bank has already produced $4 billion in credit from its original $1.5 billion Marshall Plan grant.

Following the Marshall Plan's precepts, the German government allows the money to be invested only in needed ventures. One nonutilitarian item is deducted each year from the fund. It is a Dankesspende (gift of thanks) to the American people, which this year amounts to $330,000 and will provide one year's free study for 60 U.S. students in West Germany.

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