Bill This Year On Customs Tariff

Press, Volume C, Issue 29469, 22 March 1961, Page 17

Bill This Year On Customs Tariff

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON. March 21. A new customs tariff would be introduced by legislation which would be presented to Parliament by September of this year, said the ActingPrime Minister (Mr Marshall) at the annual dinner of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce tonight. The application of the new tariff would be timed to coincide w-ith the start of the 1962 import licensing year. Normally the 1962 import licensing year would start on January 1. 1962. but, said Mr Marshall, the Government was considering possible changes in the commencement and finishing dates of the licensing year in an effort to avoid the rush of shipping about Christmas, with the disruption to trade which followed.

Import licensing would remain in force at least until after the introduction of the new tariff to make less disruptive the changes in rates of duty which would be embodied in the new tariff.

the Government was satisfied could tariff levels be finally determined, as New Zealand had obligations to many other countries, as a member of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs, and to the Commonwealth, through separate trade agreements. Mr Marshall said that one of the weaknesses of the past system was the uncertainty that was engendered by each change of government. “We want to establish a system, a combination of import licensing and tariff control, which we hope will provide the stability that commerce is entitled to expect if it is to help in the development of this country.”

Continuation of import control would also give time for a review of rates of duty to be made by the proposed tariff and development board. if such changes were necessarv. Mr Marshall said he was unable at this stage to discuss the rates of duty which would be embodied in the new tariff “However, this much I can say. The rates of duty are being considered with special regard to the recommendations of the 1957 Board of Trade report and the need to take into account the development since then, the development which is continuing now. and the development likely in the future "The new tariff rates could have wide general economic implications. In setting the new rates but to the effects on the costs of export industries, the eonsumer price index, and State revenue as well as the international effects ” j A further complex study related to the extent to which the area of impart licensing could be cut Not event when