BRITISH VICTORY

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13325, 30 April 1941, Page 6

BRITISH VICTORY

COLOSSAL £28,000,000 EXPORT OF CHEMICALS Germany's defeat in one field of the war effort is already decisive. The chemical industry of Great Britain shipped more of its exports overseas last year than in any period since the hectic years ■ following the last war. They have gone up by nearly £5,000,000 to about £28,000,000, the largest increase in any group of United Kingdom manufactures.

Everywhere throughout the Empire and among the friendly neutrals the Germans have been routed. Britain has stepped in, sometimes with two-edged effect, where supplies of heavy chemicals from Germany, Belgium and Holland have been cut off. In Argentina, for example, she is selling more of a certain chemical than she and Germany together did before the war, for the reason that other finished products in which the chemical is used are also no longer getting from Germany across the Atlantic.

There is, moreover, a good prospect that Britain will continue after the war to supply the dyestuffs which used to come from Germany, the world's biggest peace time supplier. Britain's progress here is equalled by her production of highly complex medicinal chemicals. In pharmaceuticals Britain, by twenty years' intensive research, can meet all demands from home and overseas; certain products are even cheaper today than they were during the last Avar.

Excellent progress has been made in South America, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Colonies. In the United States there has been an improvement; and trade with Turkey is satisfactory.