N.Z. ‘enemy’ predicts market for butter

Press, 23 April 1979, Page 14

N.Z. ‘enemy’ predicts market for butter

NZPA staff correspondent I London | One of Britain's big dairy j trading and distributing! companies has predicted that! New Zealand will be allowed! to send up to 80,000 tonnes of butter to Britain "well into the next decade.” The prediction is contained in a review of the British butter market by the company, Lovell and Christmas, a key member of the Dairy Trades Federation, which opposes the entry of New Zealand butter. The company said New Zealand’s foothold in the British market was strong enough to ensure that it would be allowed to send annual shipments of 70,000 to 80,000 tonnes. This would be well below the level after 1980 —- when present arrangements would end — that New Zealand wanted but would be in line with what the European

| Commission was reported to ibe proposing. j New Zealand this year I may send 120,000 tonnes, land next year 115,000 (tonnes. i The commission’s report, part of which has already been leaked, on New Zealand’s place in the market after 1980 is expected to be published once E.E.C. Agriculture Ministers finish their annual price review, now delayed until after the British General Election on May 3. Lovell and Christmas said British butter production was increasing in expectations of New Zealand’s - being given reduced quan- ; tities, and that consumption, which had fallen in recent I years, might stabilise or I even increase a little. The company said that im- ■ ports and home production i next year would total I 475,000 tonnes, leaving a I surplus of 75,000 tonnes : over the expected coni sumption of 400,000 tonnes.

Danish, Irish and West German producers are expected to increase their butter exports to Britain, but the company has predicted a decrease for the Dutch, one of the strongest opponents of New Zealand’s role in th market. The Netherlands last year sent 38,000 tonnes to Britain and Lovell and Christmas said this could be down to only 25,000 tonnes in 1980. Common Market stocks of butter held in intervention stores and stockpiled privately with the aid of E.E.C. subsidies ■— the "butter mountain” — are almost, twice as high as a syear ago. Stocks at the end of March were .313,441 tonnes, compared with 168,135 tonnes a year earlier. West German stores hold most of the “mountain.”