N.Z.’s Growing Strength In Talks On Trade

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30103, 10 April 1963, Page 16

N.Z.’s Growing Strength In Talks On Trade

(Neui Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON. April 9

The meeting of the New Zealand-Australia consultative committee on trade adjourned this afternoon without any official comment from either side on what progress, if any. had been made. The talks were due to be held in Wellington before Christmas, but each Government was much too preoccupied with the problems posed by Britain’s bid for E.E.C. membership to press for a meeting at that time

Present at the talks today were the Minister of Overseas Trade (Mr Marshall) and the Australian Minister for Trade (Mr McEwen). Officials on each side numbered 14, New Zealand officials are concerned at a deficit in New Zealand's trade with Australia of £37.7 million in the year ended March 31. 1962 The deficit was about £l9 million in 1958.

New Zealand’s main purchases across the Tasman are

steel, dried fruit, wine, hardwoods. and, in recent years, motoi -cars.

Some of the by-products of the oil refinery to be operated in Whangarei will eliminate imports from Australia, but further exchange will have to be found for raw material for the Comalco aluminium industry which is due to be operating in Southland before the end of this decade. New Zealand officials consider that their bargaining position today is better than at any time since the consultative committee was set up in 1958, largely because of the firm plan to set up a steel industry in New Zealand capable of an annual output of 150,000 tons.

New Zealand's young paper, pulp and soft timber industry is playing a large part in the attempt to redress the imbalance of New Zealand's trade with Australia. Half of New Zealand's exports of £ll million to Australia comprise these three items. The Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) has said that the consultative committee would have on its agenda “variations of the idea of a customs union between Australia and New Zealand.”

The second report of the Monetary and Economic Council some months ago urged the Government to inquire into the possibility of a trans-Tasman customs union.