IMPORTS INTO TAHITI.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20916, 25 July 1933, Page 10

IMPORTS INTO TAHITI.

♦ DUTY TO BE IMPOSED BY FRANCE. THREAT TO NEW ZEALAND TRADE. (rKESS ASSOCIATION TILEGP.AM.) WELLINGTON, July 24. "The French are going to give us a bad time in Papeete," said Mr W. M. Reid, a Sydney exporter, who returned to-day by the Makura after a business trip to Tahiti. "The Minister for the French colonies went there recently and he said that a duty would be put on everything that did not come from France, even tinned meat and flour. I do not know how they can hope to do it," said Mr Reid. "Flour would have to come from wheat imported into France from Algeria," Mr Reid went on to say, "and the process would be a long and hardly a profitable one." It was also proposed, although not yet confirmed, to grant a bonus on all copra shipped to France. Hitherto all the copra had been shipped to San Francisco. A duty would be imposed on all foreign copra, and with the fund thus created it was proposed to implement the bonus scheme. Mr Reid said that at present New Zealand supplied practically all Papeete's requirements of tinned butter, bacon, and condensed milk, as well as a considerable quantity of tinned meat. New Zealand was getting her full share of the trade, but the duties contemplated might have a serious effect on her exports.