NEW TRADE PRODUCTS COME TO BAY OF PLENTY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 46, 19 May 1950, Page 5

NEW TRADE PRODUCTS COME TO BAY OF PLENTY

Imports comprising rice, jute woolpacks, tea, linseed, pineapple, and rubber, much of which comes to the Bay of Plenty, and shipments of New Zealand milk products, wool, dairy cattle, and small but increasing quantities of cheese and butter are but few of the items in which New Zealand’s trade with the Malay States, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Ceylon, and Burma has shown great expansion, particularly in the post-war years. Comfortably catered for by one New Zealand cargo vessel before the war, this trade now provides a continuous service for two Union Steam Ship Company vessels, the Wairata and the Wairimu, and a growing demand in these countries for New Zealand primary products in particular has done much to keep an unfavourable trade balance within decreasing limits. In June the Wairata will bring the first cargo of rice to reach the Dominion for some years, but this consignment is only one of many varied cargoes' loaded and unloaded on the normal itinerary of a round trip.

Between them the Wairata and Wairimu carry about 16,000 tons of cargo. In addition, assistance from the British India Steam Navigation Company is obtained as required. While New Zealand’s exports of milk products to India, Burma and Malaya since the war have not been particularly heavy in comparison with the United Kingdom market, although this year’s figures are expected to show a reasonable .increase, the market is being developed in the face of many difficulties, with the possibility of further expansion in 1950. The chief difficulty is that many of these countries are allocating practically the whole of their available sterling funds to the purchase of capital equipment to meet reconstruction needs and to overtake arrears caused by the war. This naturally has restricted the activities of the Dominion’s trade representatives in these countries, but at the same time no opportunity is being neglected to sell New Zealand’s produce and reduce as far as possible an unfavourable trade balance which has for so many years been a feature of the Dominion’s trade with South-east Asia.