TRADE WITH INDIA

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 281, 26 August 1942, Page 4

TRADE WITH INDIA

Possibilities Of Future

Expansion VISITOR’S MISSION

“1 am visiting New Zealand to make contact with the New Zealand Government and in tiie hope of meeting commercial leaders and representatives,” said Mr. Ramji Saksena, Indian Government Trade Commissioner in Australia and New Zealand, yesterday "India is already sending exports to Australia and taking Australian products, and there should be a field for trade expansion between India and New Zealand.

“We have, in'the past, supplied New Zealand with woolpaeks and other products, and today are doing increasing business in cotton piece goods, but we have many other things to offer, such as oil seeds, coffee, shellac and mica. In return for some of these, New Zealand might be able to supply quantities of wool ami cheese, in addition to the butter already going to India. Mr. Saksena said that the war had brought considerable expansion in Indian industry. The steel industry was now the largest in the Empire and the second largest in the world, and when war demands eeased it might be possible for New Zealand to obtain steel girdering and such things from the nearer market. India had considerable bauxite deposits, too. Before the war it had been cheaper for India to import her aluminium requirements, but the bauxite was now being developed and aluminium production was already in the experimental stage. Machine tools, also, were being produced and might be available for export later. The heavy chemical and drug industries were being developed and India was now producing almost all her needs of explosives, there being the necessary sulphur and nitrate deposits available. The precision instrument industry was now well established. Of the 60,000 articles required by tiie Eastern Group for war purposes, India was now producing fully 75 per cent.

“I do not expect to visit the South Island,” said Mr. Saksena. "I shall stay in Wellington for a little more than a week, ami shall spend a few days in Auckland liefore returning to Australia.”