N.Z. SIGNS WHEAT AGREEMENT

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 14640, 8 April 1948, Page 6

N.Z. SIGNS WHEAT AGREEMENT

PURCHASE OF 5,511,000 BUSHELS A YEAR (P.A.) Wellington, April 7. The Minister of Industries and Commerce, Mr Nofdmeyer, announced that the New Zealand Government had signed the international wheat agreement negotiated at the recent conference in Washington, The agreement would come into force on August 1. New Zealand had guaranteed to purchase 5,511,000 bushels a year, said the Minister. The maximum price for the five years for. which the agreement would remain in force would be 2 dollars a bushel. The minimum price would be 1 dollar 50 cents in the first year and would fall by 10 cents a year. Provision had been made for a review of the minimum and maximum prices in. the last three years of the agreement. The international agreement did not apply to prices arranged under agreements' entered into before March 1, 1947, he added. Therefore, the prices payable by New Zealand for wheat supplied by Australia under the contract made between the two countries in 1946 would not be affected. The 5,500,000 bushels a year mentioned included the 'wheat being imported from Australia under the 1946 contract.