THE FINANCIAL POSITION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 706, 8 January 1910, Page 2

THE FINANCIAL POSITION.

Optimism is the prevailing note of the Trade Review’s monthly survey of the financial position in the Dominion. The December quarter, it remarks, is a period which always brings with it substantial demands upon the New Zealand money market. On the one hand the advances against wool and other produce which go out in the autumn season leave their mark most heavily on the bank returns for the December quarter, while on the other hand the import and export returns for this period invariably exhibit a balance, more or less substantial, on the side of imports. This has been the experience, certainly, for the last ten years, and for the last three years the excess has averaged over ,£900,000 for the December quarter. “ The banking and trade returns for the quarter just concluded are looked forward to with considerable interest, and we think,” says the Review, “that there is every reason to anticipate that the results will prove to be unusually favorable and satisfactory. We expect to see, as compared with the statistics of a year ago, a shrinkage in the value of imports and an increase in exports sufficient to negative the experience of recent years and bring the two sides to an approximate equality, possibly even showing a slight excess of exports over imports. As regards exports, wool and dairy produce have come forward exceptionally early. The proceeds of these products coming to book unusually early must have a favorable effect upon the financial

position. Of course, the JanuaryMarch quarter is the important period of the year in respect to our export trade, the proportion of our products going forward in that period being usually about 40 per cent., in value, of the whole year. The total value of our exports for that period, is usually about £7,000,000, and the current season promises to be an exceptionally good one. With improving commercial prospects in the world generally the outlook before the Dominion lor the year upon which we have just entered is most encouraging.”