DOLLAR LOAN PROPOSAL

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25902, 7 September 1949, Page 4

DOLLAR LOAN PROPOSAL

—* — AMERICAN BANKER’S VIEWS

“WELL WORTH PURSUING”

(New Zealand Press Association.)

AUCKLAND. September 6. The proposals of the Minister of Finance (Mr Nash) to raise dollar loans in Canada and the United States are regarded by Mr R. S. Hecht, a prominent American banker, financier, and shipowner, as well worth pursuing. Mr Hecht, who was president of the American Bankers’ Association for five years, arrived in Auckland today to spend a week in the Dominion in the course of a tour of the Pacific, the Orient, and Europe. After reading a summary of Mr Nash’s Budget scheme for hard currency loans, Mr Hecht said there seemed to he much in the Minister’s statement that was both interesting and worth while. Any means of increasing exports from New Zealand to the United States deserved thorough consideration.

“I have repeatedly emphasised to my own people that the United States cannot hope to keep up enormous exports without increased imports, and without aiding purchasing countries by the provision of credit where it is needed and deserved,” he continued. He suggested that New Zealand was too little known in the United States from the standpoint of credit to make it possible for a loan to be floated direct to investors. It was a proposition that could probably be handled more appropriately by the World Bank. It was certainly something worth looking into.

Asked if American , interests were pressing for the devaluation of sterling. Mr Hecht said the financial and economic problems of Britain were so serious that they were equally a matter of concern to America. He vrould not say there was any urging on the part of the United States to revalue the £, unless after talking it over in the present conferences. Everyone agreed that it might help the situation. Mr Hecht will visit Wellington and the South Island before going to Australia and India.