Trend of New Zealand’s Trade

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 61, 3 June 1927, Page 9

Trend of New Zealand’s Trade

GERMANY BUYS LESS LAST YEAR’S BIG IMPORTS (Prom Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. A report which has been issued by the Government Statistician, Mr. Malcolm Fraser, gives detailed information of the trade of the Dominion, together with extensive figures of the trends over recent years. It is shown that the exports from New Zealand to all countries during 1926 were valued at £45,275,575, which is a great deal less than the previous year, when the £50,000,000 mark was exceeded. Of these exports £39,526,617 went to British countries, and £5,748,958 to foreign lands. The Motherland’s share, which had throughout the years that followed fast shipping transport remained in the vicinity of 80 per cent. —with exceptional variations following industrial dislocations —was £35,102,087, or a slight drop below the usual figure. Trade with Germany shows a significant drop. The figures of exports to Germany in 1924 (£1,166,302) and 1925 (£1,614,090) gave rise to the belief that the tremendous increase in trade with Germany which followed the post-war revival in 1922 and the removal of the embargo on German imports in September, 1923, was to be maintained. Last year, however, the exports reached only £364,629, while imports totalled £673,472 in value. Imports, which have increased enormously during the past decade in sympathy with increased export trade, totalled £49,889,563 last year, as against £52,456,407 in 1925, which was (with the exception of the boom year (1920) the highest ever recorded. Of the 1926 imports, £35,969,052 came from British countries, and £13,900,511 from foreign countries. Goods imported from England were valued at £24,331,410. The nature and class of imports appear to have changed little throughout the years, but in some cases there have been enormous increases in the quantity, motors and motor material registering a tremendous rise in value. Motors have of course been the most notable increase in recent years, the rise in number occurring after 1911, when the value of annual imports of this class rose gradually till in 1920 it was at the figure, £5,256,809, and in 1925 it had risen to £5,882, 387. Year by year statistic records are being smashed in the importation of motors.