State Aid For Export Of Manufactured Goods

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27989, 8 June 1956, Page 12

State Aid For Export Of Manufactured Goods

An assurance of Government assistance to secondary industries in New Zealand which produced increased quantities of goods that could be exported to existing and newly-developed markets was given by the Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr E. H. Halstead), when he addressed 30 councillors and trade group chairmen of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association at a luncheon in Christchurch yesterday. Mr Halstead did not specify the type of assistance. “A lot of our industries can make export surpluses and we have got to take advantage of this and pursue an aggressive overseas trade policy, he said. . . “There are opportunities in tne East, and in the West Indies and in some parts of South America—markets not only for our primary products but for manufacturing as well. The Government will assist them to encourage that trade. “I have been trying to find out how many industries in New Zealand can produce surplus for export and since I have been in Christchurch I have been surprised,” Mr Halstead said. “With a little bit of stimulation and help from the Government I think we can expand the surplus to send from this country. “Yesterday, I found one factory exporting milking machine parts to many countries of the world, including the United States, and this morning I came across a factory exporting equipment it had made to Great Britain and I saw a churn being made for shipment to Scotland.” After the present inquiry, the Government would have a list of hardcore industries which required either protective tariffs or quantitative restrictions, Mr Halstead said. If an industry did not fall into one category or the other, then it would have to fight to become a hard-core industry. Because many manu-

facturers did not know the light they I were considered in, they had been I caused much upset but the results of I the inquiry would end that. “Often I have been asked the Government’s attitude to secondary industries, as if that was a difficult thing to understand,” Mr Halstead said. “We believe that healthy and expanding secondary industries arc an essential component in our economy. They should be able to compete with imports under tariff that takes into account differences in cost of raw materials, wages standards and cost of living. Quantitative restrictions may be necessarv to some industries in their fledgling years and old-established industries which have got sick may need help." New Zealand industry should continually strive for quality and economy of operation. “We must always be vigilant to encourage industry to strive for improvement.” he said. “I hear manufacturers loosely say we ought to have import control but that requires a close examination because the position in 1938 was very different from today’s. Conditions have changed very greatly.” Mr Halstead said that in 1938 consumer goods comprised 27 per cent, of imports while raw materials amounted to 43 per cent, of imports. Today, the comparative figures were 19 per cent, for consumer goods and 52 per cent, for raw materials. The value of consumer goods imported today was £39,000.000 but of this figure only £10,000,000 worth of goods were competitive. “In 1938, there was underemployment; today there is overemployment and an extension of import controls would aggravate the employment factor and would force up the cost of living with resulting wage-spiralling and a sick country. “We could not go back to import controls without creating a shortage of consumer goods and raw materials.” he said.