FREE PORT OF SALONIKI 285 ek he nt Af ne Na n= 12 0s a= al 0, piel 18 1 vO ls 0 TN re d 1 10 1} J a Ji} e if n Exception is made in the case of the salt destined for the Yugoslav State Salt Monopoly, which, under a special ruling made by the Greek free zone administration, has been authorized to be unloaded in the Yugoslav free zone in order to facilitate its loading on railway trucks and avoid a congestion of the Greek free zone. For the same reason the Greek free zone has provisionally exempted the unloading and storing in its area of certain other bulky commodities, such as fuel wood, certain minerals, lumber, livestock, etc., belonging to the Yugoslav trade. In speaking of the traffic of the Greek free zone, it must be borne in mind that all the imports into the port of Saloniki, whether destined for consumption in Greece or whether for transit to other countries, are entered in the Greek free zone, with the few exceptions cited above. The statistics of the imports into the Greek free zone are sometimes misleading and are taken as representing transit traffic whose ultimate destination may be the Balkan and other Central European countries. However, 84 per cent of the imports into the Greek free zone in 1927 and 85 per cent in 1926 were destined for consumption in Greece, chiefly Greek Macedonia, and only 14 and 15 per cent, respectively, sonsisted of transit and reconsignment trade. While the total imports into the Greek free zone increased from 445,597 tons in 1926 to 457,928 tons in 1927, the exports from the free zone to foreign destinations declined from 59,769 tons in 1926 to 44,437 tons in 1927. This decrease was primarily due to a decrease in the cereal crops in southern Yugoslavia and a consequent decline in the exports of this commodity through the Greek free zone. The efforts of the Yugoslav Government to encourage Yugoslav merchants to use its Adriatic ports also contributed to this decline, The entire movement of the Greek free zone for the year 1927 was as follows: Imports of— General merchandise (tons). Livestock (head)... _. Birds (head) _______.. Lumber (cubic meters) These imports were disposed of as follows: Entered in customhouse at Saloniki for Greek consumption: General merchandise (fons)... Livestock (head) .__ Birds (head) ___.__ Lumber (cubic meters) oo _.-. Reshipped to other Greek ports (tons). . [n transit to other countries (tons). voce. em mmmm————— Remaining in the Greek free zone at the end of the year (tons). _._... m---. 363,624 270 2, 336 56, 735 34, 460 44, 437 15. 407