Mr Marshall Reports On Meat Proposals

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30144, 30 May 1963, Page 14

Mr Marshall Reports On Meat Proposals

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, May 29. New Zealand had agreed to examine proposals for a new meat agreement with Britain, said the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Marshall) today on his return from trade conferences in London and Geneva.

The proposals would be considered in the light of New Zealand’s treaty rights of free and unrestricted access to the British market until 1967.

As Minister of Overseas Trade, Mr Marshall attended the recent Commonwealth trade ministeirs’ conference and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade conference.

He said the outcome of the G.A.T.T. conference was a victory for the agricultural exporting countries in their fight for a fairer deal.

The conference has decided to conduct comprehensive trade negotiations on a most-favoured-nation basis and on the principle of reciprocity in the coming year. However, Mr Marshall said, these and other conference decisions merely provided the machinery for negotiations. The hard bargaining Would take place between now and May next year The ideal of a Commonwealth trade area of the kind set up at Ottawa in 1932 belonged to the past and not the future, he said New Zealand was the only member of the Commonwealth for whom Commonwealth trade was paramount. “We should understand that our attitude to Commonwealth trade is the exception rather than the rule. We ourselves mupt look to the world as our market.” New Zealand has got stability and certainty in the British butter market that it did not have before, he said Although New Zealand faced no contraction of the traditional butter market, he thought the end had come to unlimited expansion. British proposals for a new meat agreement would be discussed in the next few months. No variation of the existing agreement had been contemplated. As with the butter agreement. Britain would not make any changes before consulting New Zealand. Mr Marshall said.

Butter Proposition The proportion of New Zealand butter on the market was fully guaranteed at its present tally. The United Kingdom Government had no intention of removing import restrictions on butter so long as there was any threat from foreign countries.

Mr Marshal] said that under the terms of the agreement reached there was a

“built-in” anti-dumping measure. The United .Kingdom had undertaken to consult with the New Zealand Government if at any time it wanted to change the present system. ,

The Minister sjid the U.K. Government had assured him that it did not intend to encourage further expansion of home milk production for the purposes of manufacturing for butter or bueese. He said that the quota system affected only butter and not cheese The idea of a Commonwealth trade area of the kind set up at Ottawa in 1932 belonged to the past and not to the future, said Mr Marshall. This was apparent from the discussions, he had at the Commonwealth trade ministers’* conference.

Most Commonwealth countries appeared to be looking for increased trade on a world-vffde basis through the multi-lateral system provided by G.A.T.T. “Many members of the Commonwealth regard the world as their market and see their future trade expansion on a world basisarather than within a Commonwealth group.

“This may come as something of a shock to many people in this country for whom the Commonwealth —specially the old Commonwealth —has been accepted for many years as the basis of our trade. . . . “We should understand that the New Zealand attitude to Commonwealth trade was the exception rather than the rule. We ourselves must also look to the world as our market,” said Mr Marshall.