U.S. Cabinet Minister On N.Z. Trade Problems

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29983, 19 November 1962, Page 10

U.S. Cabinet Minister On N.Z. Trade Problems

Aggressive selling, enterprise, and hard bargaining in the markets of the world are among solutions suggested by the United States Secretary of Commerce (Mr Luther H. Hodges) for trading problems faced by New Zealand because of Britain’s possible entry into the Common Market. Mr Hodges said in an interview after arriving at Harewood yesterday afternoon from Australia that it was essential to get out and meet the challenge with initiative and enterprise.

Mr Hodges speaks with experience in meeting difficulties: when as Governor of North Carolina he found that employment in farming in the State was falling off, he initiated a great industrial development programme which resulted in North Carolina having the greatest volume of new industrial investment among 10 Southern States. “I think that your premise is not quite correct,” said Mr Hodges when it was suggested to him that the United States appeared to be urging Britain’s entry into the Common Market, and might therefore have some responsibility to help countries such as New Zealand that might suffer as a result. The United States, he said, was taking no part in urging Britain to join the Common Market, but his country did feel that the development of the political entity of the Common Market could mean a great deal to the free world. “As Much To Lose”

On the economic side the United States in many ways had as much to lose as New Zealand, he said, but it was taking the Common Market as a great challenge The United States wanted to get out and meet that challenge by aggressive selling and hard bargaining, and he felt that countries such as New Zealand should do the same Because it depended on a narrow range of agricultural products for export. New Zealand probably faced greater difficulties, and his country would favour the provision of arrangements to alleviate those problems. Told that New Zealand feared that, if Britain joined the Common Market, tariffs and quotas of the community might seriously restrict New Zealand trade with Britain, Mr Hodges said that the United States had no preferences. However, the United States Secretary of Agriculture (Mr Orville Freeman' was no doubt expressing the views of the Administration when, in appealing last week to the Common Market coun-

tries to promote rather than restrict international trade in agricultural produce, he suggested that the United States felt it would be to their mutual advantage if established agricultural trading relationships were preserved. Lamb Trade When asked about the further development of New Zealand trade in lamb with the United States, Mr Hodges said that last year New Zealand shipped to the United States goods worth £4lm and in return took only £27m worth of goods from the United States. Mr Hodges, who has played

an important role in supporting measures to reduce his country’s unfavourable balance of payments, commented: “We would like to see it a two-way trade.” Nevertheless, he did not discount the possibilities of expanding the lamb trade if initiatives and enterprise were shown by New’Zealand. The United States, he said, was a fantastic selling market with close on 200 m people. “If necessary, take your own plants over there,” he said, discussing the sort of high-pressure drive that was neede< “Nobody is going to hold your hand." he added. Opposition of United States

farmer groups to imports of agricultural produce from countries such as New Zealand, he said, was no more than natural, and was likely to happen anywhere. Antarctic Visit Mr Hodges, who left later in the evening for Antarctica to inspect United States installations, said that when he returned he hoped to have talks in Wellington with the Government He had no specific subjects to discuss, but everywhere he went he was speaking about “trade, travel, and investment.” So far, because New Zealand’s economy had largely been agricultural, United States investment here had not been great, but as industrialisation increased he felt that Americans would be prepared “to trust the dollar here.”