PAKISTAN JUTE EXPORTS

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28128, 17 November 1956, Page 8

PAKISTAN JUTE EXPORTS

EXPANSION OF N.Z. MARKET

' TRADE COMMISSIONER SEES PROSPECTS

Pakistan already exported raw jute to New Zealand, and he confidently expected that soon she would be exporting manufactured jute, said Mr A. W. Khan, commercial secretary to the High Commissioner for Pakistan in Australia and New Zealand in an interview in Christchurch. Mr Khan, who is passing through Christchurch on his way to the Colombo Plan Conference in Wellington, has been commercial secretary in Sydney for four years. “When we begin exporting the manufactured jute to New Zealand, as we are already to Australia, I expect that we will be able to capture a large part of the Dominion’s market,” he said. “What is your present jute production, and how much do you expect to be able to send to New Zealand?” Mr Khan was asked. . . He considered the glowing tip of his cigarette for a moment and then said: “Frankly, I don’t know, not at the moment.’’ Ey way of explanation he added: “The production of manufactured jute in Pakistan has gone up 600 per cents in the last five years. It’s growing country and this makes it rather difficult to keep track of the tremendous rate of development.” Ethnical Differences

Pakistan’s greatest drawback was not its separation into two area's half a continent apart, but the ethnical differences between her peoples. “In East Pakistan they are rice and fish eating people, while in the west they eat wheat and meat; the eastern Pakistanis live on rivers and waterways, but if the western people see a ditch more than 10 feet wide they take fright,” he said. But although there were language differences, cultural, economic and social differences, the binding factor was religion and the awareness of outside pressures. If they did not stand together, he said, they would be overwhelmed.

This at least mc.de it unlikely that one would break away from the other no matter how great the temptations brought on by minor differences and misunderstandings between one part of the country and the other.