LONDON TRADE TALKS

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28400, 5 October 1957, Page 12

LONDON TRADE TALKS

Mr Tennent To Lead N.Z. Party

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, October 4. The New Zealand team to the trade talks in London next month will be led by Mr R. B. Tennent, Deputy-Director-General of Agriculture, the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) announced tonight. The talks will be on the agricultural production and marketing policies of the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Earlier. Mr Holyoake had indicated that the official side of the delegation would be confined to officials only and that no Minister could be spared in view of the pending elections. It is understood the Government has been under some pressure from producer organisations that a Minister should be appointed to head the team. As, in effect, the talks are between representatives of the two Governments, the choice before the New Zealand Government was to send either a Minister or a senior official. Mr Tennent did not attend the London talks earlier this year. The Director-General of Agriculture (Mr E. J. Fawcett), who is due to retire in the next few weeks, was a delegate. Delegation Members The other members of the New Zealand delegation are: Mr J. B. Prendergast, senior trade commissioner, London; Mr H. G. Lang, economic counsellor, London; Mr L. V. Castle, Department of External Affairs; Mr A. W. Broadbent, Department of Industries and Commerce; Mr A. Linton, chairman. New Zealand Dairy Board; Mr R. A. Candy, chairman, New Zealand Dairy Products Marketing Commission; Mr P. B. Marshall, general .manager of the commission; Mr J. D. Ormond, chairman of the New Zealand Meat Producers Board; Mr D. L. M. Martin, London man-ager-designate of the board; Mr W. Benzies, a member of the Apple and Pear Marketing Board and Mr J. W. Watson, London representative of the board. “These consultations will embrace the agricultural production and marketing policies of the two countries and the food import policy of the United Kingdom and other related matters,” said Mr Holyoake tonight. The agreement which had been concluded with the United Kingdom Government provided that the two Governments should consult in November each year. New Zealand, he said, attached great importance to these annual talks, which represented an important advance in the machinery of consultation between the two countries.

Before attending the London talks, Mr Tennent will lead the New Zealand delegation to the ninth session of the Food and Agricultural Organisation starting tn Rome on November 2.