TRADE WITH ASIA

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29263, 22 July 1960, Page 16

TRADE WITH ASIA

Chances For N.Z.

Great possibilities for trade in Japan and Asia are foreseen by Professor B. P. Philpott, professor of agricultural economics at Canterbury Agricultural College. Speaking to the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural Science this week, he said that after centuries of poverty, living standards were rising in South-east Asia. Japan, he said. Would provide the model of development for these countries. He believed that lake Japan they would become importers of foodstuffs but they would only be importers from New Zealand if New Zealand bought from them.

The trade that could develop, perhaps on a long-term basis, was in light manufactures and textiles and New Zealand should not be developing these sorts of industries, as if they became competitive with similar Asian industries the possibilities of trade would be remote.

Japan, he said, had became one of the world’s foremost manufacturers of woollen textiles and she was the lowest cost producer, a matter of some importance when normally the raw material was only one-tenth of the cost of the textile. Japan was ait the gateway of the great potential markets in Asia and everything should be done to encourage trade with Japan but there was a great cleavage in New Zealand between those who held this view and those, who supported high cost manufacturing industries in New Zealand.