Export men ‘to do better’

Press, 30 June 1983, Page 13

Export men ‘to do better’

PA Wellington People whose living is more directly associated with export industries and related services will, in future, do better than those who are not, says Victoria University’s professor of geography, Professor Harvey Franklin. Giving the final of this year’s Turnbull Winter Lectures in Wellington yesterday, Mr Franklin said that structurally New Zealand had developed by a series of export-led booms, each exploiting one set of natural resources after another — gold, wheat, pasture, forests. Now another set of resources was being exploited

— horticulture, fish, energy, and tourism. “It is the easiest way of promoting growth we have at hand, but it will keep us where we are. In a cul de sac, a small group of people living off a relatively favourable ratio of natural resources. “What is uncertain about these developments is the number of additional people the economy will be able to support and at what standard of living. “However, it is certain that those whose living is directly associated with the export industries and their related service industries will, in future, do better than those who are not.”