BUYING BY WOOL COMMISSION

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28543, 24 March 1958, Page 15

BUYING BY WOOL COMMISSION

Effect On Market Stability

The New Zealand Wool Commission’s intention to support New Zealand growers’ wools by buying in at floor prices has imparted more stability to the

market for these_wools in chief consuming countries, reports the New Zealand Wool Board’s Bradfor correspondent, in the board’s latest newsletter.

The wool trading conditions in all types of wool remain difficult and the wool consumption rate in Britain is about 14 per cent, below, the high levels that were ruling this time a year ago, the correspondent says. World statistics show the recent stern measures to protect the British currency, these being only one factor, and not the most important, in the wool markets. Easier wool prices are resulting from a declining consumption trend that is taking place in several of the chief manufacturing countries, with the United States showing the biggest drop and France and Japan well below the best period of last year. The wool price decline has a counterpart in many other commodities, and the Bradford wool trade view is that weaker elements in the international economic situation are now substantially discounted in the falling wool prices. A factor making Jor strength is that the remaining supplies of good wools in both New Zealand and Australia are sufficiently limited to promote buying interest if users wish to have reasonable supplies coming forward in the months ahead. The current stocks in Bradford are moving slowly through the reduced mill activity. Unemployment has not increased, but much of the night work and overtime which have been almost general during . the past few years, has been eliminated.