N.Z. TIMBER FOR PULPING

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25713, 27 January 1949, Page 6

N.Z. TIMBER FOR PULPING

PROSPECTS*OF MARKET IN AUSTRALIA (P.A.) AUCKLAND, January 26. Prospects of a regular market in Australia for products of New Zealand pine forests will be discussed in the Dominion by two representatives of Australian Newsprint Mills, Ltd. They are the deputy-chairman of the company (Mr H. O. Giddy) and the managing director (Mr S. L. Kessel), who have arrived in Auckland by air. Their visit is connected with an agreement between New Zealand Forest Products, Ltd., and their company under which their company undertook to take 12,500 tons of timber pulp a year for the manufacture of newsprint in Tasmania. . . Mr Giddy said that they would discuss with the Government and representatives of Forest Products supplies of raw material for their mills in Tasmania. It was hoped that a regular market for products of New Zealand pine forests would be developed with the manufacture of sulphite pulp. Under the agreement, which was concluded, in September, 1948, the Australian company agreed to provide capital amounting to £BOO.OOO for the development of a chemical pulp mill to be erected by Forest Products near Tokoroa. The company also under'ook to take 12,500 tons of pulp a year for at least 20 years. The annual value of the exported pulp was estimated to be between £300,000 and £400.000.

Mr Giddy said that Australia had recently been receiving increased supplies of newsprint from Scandinavia and England. Larger newspapers generally would be expected and the race to capture the field in circulation figures had qlready begun in earnest. After the limitations imposed by the war the public were reading more widely, and circulations had risen appreciably.

Mr Giddy declined to say whether he knew of any scheme for the manufacture of newsprint in New Zealand, but added that Australia would in ail probability never be completely selfsupporting in newsprint supplies.