COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27064, 12 June 1953, Page 9

COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT

New Company ‘Ready To Do Business’ (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, June 11. The Commonwealth Development and Finance Company, recently formed to assist the implementation of Commonwealth capital development programmes is now ready to do business, says the “Financial Times.” After recalling the decision of some City of London institutions to co-oper-ate in forming the new company after the Commonwealth economic conference last year, the paper says: “Earlier this year it was announced that the proposed concern had been incorporated with a capital of £15,000,000 and borrowing powers .of double this amount. In the period since then, arrangements have been going forward for putting the company in a position to start business. The stage has now been reached when it is possible to begin to scrutinise projects. “The company has taken a temporary office in the city, where its business will be conducted until a permanent home is found. A call of 10 per cent on the nominal capital of £15,000,000 has also been made in accordance with the intention, announced earlier. “Since the bulk of the company’s activities will be financed by the exercise of its borrowing powers, no further call on capital is likely to be made for some time to come, if at all. “Cautious Lines” “Stress was laid again during the Commonwealth Prjme Ministers’ conference, which has just ended in London, on the need for the active use of the facilities that the new organisation is to provide in connexion with financing desirable Commonwealth developmental projects. In quarters closely connected with the company, however, it is expected that in the initial stages the company will proceed on cautious lines and that the actual business transacted will not reach substantial figures at first. “It is pointed out that the company, which is being sponsored by the Bank of England and a number of industrial, shipping, mining, commercial and financial concerns, is in any case intended to provide marginal finance rather than the whole of the money needed for particular projects. Broadly speaking, it will furnish the ‘missing portion’ of money needed for desirable projects that are already assured of obtaining the bulk of their needs elsewhere. It is held that if the company proceeds on these lines, the demands on its resources in the early stages are fairly certain to be modest since it will be only when the project has reached an advanced stage that the company will actually make money available.”

Australian Footballers in Africa.— Tired after their air trip but happy and well, the Australian Rugby Union tourists arrived today. The team will leave tomorrow for Durban for a week’s training. The first match against Natal will be played at Durban on June 20.—Johannesburg, June