JAPAN AND NEW ZEALAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 953, 22 April 1930, Page 11

JAPAN AND NEW ZEALAND

CLOSER TRADE RELATIONS SOUGHT MANY BUSINESS OPENINGS From Our Resident Reporter WELLINGTON, Today. To study the commercial possibilities of the Dominion in relation to Japan, Air. Yugi Nagashima, manager in Australia and New Zealand for Mitsui Gussan Kaisha, Limited, general merchants, of Tokyo, arrived by the Tahiti from Sydney yesterday. He will spend several weeks in New Zealand. Mr. Nagashima considers that both New Zealand and Japan would benefit by closer trade relations. New Zealand’s trade per capita, he said, warranted an extension of her commerce to fields hitherto not wholly explored by her. There were chances for her to trade more extensively in the Far East, which was still not properly aware of her entity as a separate nation, with a place in the Pacific. It was remarkable that even yet there were many in the East who believed Australia and New Zealand were one and the same country, and people from New Zealand were still referred to as Australians. Although Mr. Nagashima’s firm was not a shipping concern in the strict sense of the tei*m, it was prepared to send cargo vessels to New Zealand if the trade was offering. Mr. Nagashima said it had been suggested that Dominion ports should be included permanently in the itinerary of Japanese freighters and there was no reason why this should not be done. Business men from Japan who had visited New Zealand had returned greatly impressed with its progress and the advanced state of its national services and private enterprise. With a population of about 1,500,000 New Zealand was conducting services which would be the envy of countries with ten times her population. In addition, her trade facilities were to be wondered at considering her population and its scattered nature. It appeared that New Zealand’s tariffs were nojt insuperable to Japanese traders. They were looking to her more and more in view of Australia’s almost prohibitive protective customs barrier erected to prevent imports and so restore economic state.

In spite of the fact that New Zealand wool had been sold at low prices this season, Japan would not benefit to nearly the same extent as England, America and the Continent. The woollen trade was not in a particularly sound condition in Japan at i>resent, which meant that she would not be able to take advantage of the lower purchase prices for the raw material.