STERLING BLOC TRADE

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28559, 12 April 1958, Page 14

STERLING BLOC TRADE

Diplomat’s Views On Balances Sterling, an effective medium of exchange among a number of countries, was being stultified by insistence on favourable bilateral trade balances, the new Australian Trade Commissioner in New Zealand (Mr H. C. Menzies) said in Christchurch yesterday. “Why do we trade in sterling? Because it has universal utility,” he said. “People naturally want other people to buy their goods, and if the other people just do not endeavour to buy tfien you have a genuine grouch. We tried very hard in the last two years to increase purchases of New Zealand goods, and in the last few years our imports have more than doubled.” Mr Menzies asked: “Is it so terribly important that within a sterling trade bloc you have a favourable trade balance in one country and an unfavourable one in another country?” He answered his own question: “In the long run the whole thing comes down to: Is the balance of sterling favourable at the end of the year?’ “You might as well cut out a unit of currency and go back to barter if that is not the case,” he added. > New Zealand Exports Mr Menzies said that New Zealand could help itself by improving its unfavourable balance of trade with Australia with a more active selling policy and more intensive research into requirements of Australian industry. “You are in a buyers’ market in Australia now,” he said. “I do not think that your exports to us would have increased had not Australia shown an interest in you. Yqut timber, pulp and fish are all breaking into our market, and it is a market that has been served by other people, and you have to meet it.” Mr Menzies said that at present he was not in New Zealand to “push Australian exports.” His general instructions were to do whatever he could to assist trade between New Zealand and Australia. “But you cannot work entirely on a one-street basis,” he said.