BOYCOTT HITS EXPORTERS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29403, 4 January 1961, Page 14

BOYCOTT HITS EXPORTERS

South African Firms Suffer (From ■ Reuter Correspondent) CAPE TOWN Some exporters in South Africa’s Cape Peninsula are still suffering badly from the boycott of South African goods. One large milling firm, for example, has lost a £ 100,000-a-year market for cattle food in Malaya. The gross turnover of an export agent has fallen from £32,000 in October last year to less than £l5OO in October this year. A senior official of the milling company said that even if the boycott in Malaya were to be lifted, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to regain the lost ground. Other exporting countries have already filled the gap and his company regards the markets as permanently lost. The export agent produced his books to show that in October, 1959, his turnover was £32.200 After that, it fell progressively to £lOOO in September this year and was less than £l5OO in October. He had been shipping processed foods and other products of secondary industry to the West Indies, Malaya, Ghana and the Sudan, where official boycotts are in force, and to the Congo, where trade has been disrupted. “Last year I specialised in exports.” the agent said. "Now I have to turn to selling goods here to supplement my commission." Consumer Resistance Several other agents said that although the East African territories have not applied official boycotts, talk of sanctions there has frightened importers off South African goods. They are afraid of consumer resistance. An official at a candle factory said the boycotts have cost the factory 85 per cent, of its export trade and the remaining percentage is in danger of disappearing. Another candle factory reported that a fair proportion of its output was previously exported, but now its export trade is negligible. The director of a big Cape Province poultry farming and exporting organisation said it has been impossible to find other markets to replace Ghana and the Congo, while a fish-processing factory which this year dismissed 300 workers after the loss of export markets said that it had been unable to take the men on again.

The managing director of a cooperative fishery at Gansbaai said that fishermen are still catching and drying sharks, although there is no market for them now. It is hoped that the Congo market may soon be opened again. The boycotts are mainly responsible for a 25 per cent surcharge which was imposed from December 1 by eight shipping lines on goods coming from West Africa to South Africa, according to an official of one of the lines. He explained that it is expensive to keep ships on the route because they are almost empty on the outward journey from South Africa. The surcharge will be reviewed, he added, when conditions return to normal.