FRUIT EXPORTS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 32, 8 February 1932, Page 12

FRUIT EXPORTS

PROBABLE LOW PRICES

GERMANY RESTRICTS BUYING

(Received Sth February, !).2O a.m.)

LONDON, Gth February. Prospects for the coining fruit season appear to be less satisfactory than those of 1931. It is expected that arrivals of Australian and New Zealand fruit will be 5,300,000 boxes, as compared with 4,280,000 last year. All present indications point to the Continent taking a much smaller proportion than in 1931, when about one-third of the total went to the Continent. It is expected that Scandinavia and Holland will take about the same quantity as in 1931, but that Germany's imports will probably be very much smaller. The reasons are explained in an informative letter in which Mr. Brown, the representative of the New Zealand -Fruit Board, has xeceived from the well-known Hamburg brokers, Messrs. Timrn and Gerstenkorn, who point out that owing to the Government assuming control of. all payments to abroad by a system of quotas, it is virtually impossible for importers to engage in long-term contracts,' such as would be required for the purchase of Australian and New Zealand fruit, or iv open letters of credit.

The general purchasing power everywhere is low. Shippers would do well to recognise this fact; also the general level o£ prices is below that of 1931.