No-remittance Import Licensing Extended

Press, Volume C, Issue 29500, 29 April 1961, Page 10

No-remittance Import Licensing Extended

(N.Z. Press Association} WELLINGTON, April 28. An extension of the no-remittance import licensing scheme which has been in operation since 1950 was announced tonight by the Minister of Customs (Mr Marshall). In future, privately-owned overseas shares held by New Zealand residents on or before December 31, 1958, will qualify for use in the scheme.

The previous qualifying date was November 18, 1953.

Mr Marshall said most imports under the no-remittance scheme were cars. “This relaxation will tend to ease further the demand for cars available through normal imports,” he said Mr Marshall explained that overseas funds, sueh as legacies and salaries derived outside New Zealand, would continue to be available for

■ no-remittance licences withi out restriction as to the date they were acquired. The date qualification on the use of proceeds from the sale of overseas shares, securities and sterling exchange had been imposed originally to prevent trafficking which developed largely to obtain funds for no-remit-tance licences.

“The Government recognises the need to continue the no-remittance scheme and the restrictions accompanying it. but it acknowledges that the existing qualifying date has now become unrealistic,” he said. “The advancemept of that date to the end of 1958 will help to reduce the present shortage of cars by the use of funds not otherwise available to finance imports.”