Costs Should Be “Kept In Check”

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29950, 11 October 1962, Page 8

Costs Should Be “Kept In Check”

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, October 10.

Cost was an important factor in manufacturing development and manufacturers as well as exporting industries had to find ways of grappling with high costs of production and distribution, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Taiboys) told the annual conference of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation today.

“High costs affect the whole community and are not a problem related solely to one section. It is of great importance to our capacity to compete, to our capacity to produce for export markets. and to our internal standard of living, that costs should be kept in check," said Mr Taiboys.

In an effort to share the burden of the gap between export earnings and the things New Zealand would like to import, import rationing had been introduced. “This inevitably means more pressure on costs and those who get the imports have some opportunity to extract more profit or pay slightly less attention to cost and efficiency than they otherwise might do. In times like these there is a great responsibility on businessmen to keep costs down by every means.”

The New Zealand supplier of goods and services had an obligation not to take advantage of the shield that the shortage of funds created for him. His obligation was to provide his goods and services at as high a quality and as low a cost as possible.

The farmer of New Zealand was subject to the severest discipline there was —that of selling in a world market. “Those supplying the essential requisites of agriculture and consumer goods have a duty, ultimately in their own interests, to set themselves standards that are no less vigorous,” said Mr Taiboys.

At present, many people, with manufacturers often in the van, were calling for more industrial development At the same time, others were were casting doubt on the value of industrial development. New Zealand’s

industrial development would continue.

“We have to have the development to fit our circumstances and it is for this reason that the Government has asked the Tariff and Development Board to examine and report on the criteria for industrial development.” Mr Taiboys said he had no doubt that the federation's submissions to the board would greatly influence the recommendations made by the board. If there was ever a time in the history of New Zealand when the luxury of ignoring the need for cooperation could be afforded that time had been submerged by the cross currents created as the flow of trade had been stemmed by the barriers of agricultural protectionism which had become a feature of post-war economic development. In recent years, the marketing of New Zealand's farm products had been meeting increasing difficulties. To make the best use of our foreign exchange resources, more manufacturing had been developed. There had been a change In the nature of imports, but no change in the country’s dependence on farm products to earn the funds to pay for them, Mr Tallboy* said.