‘Canada Near Big Soviet Wheat Sale’

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30234, 12 September 1963, Page 13

‘Canada Near Big Soviet Wheat Sale’

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) WINNIPEG (Manitoba), September 10. Canada was reported tonight to be on the verge of making a big, new wheat sale to the Soviet Union, the Canadian Press reported. Other Communist countries may also be buyers.

Authoritative sources in Winnipeg said the deal was under discussion at current Ottawa talks for a new Canadian-Russian trade agreement.

It would be fair bigger than the 11,200,000-bushel sale to Russia formally announced earlier today. One estimate placed the size of the new sale at 60,000,000 bushels, worth 100 m dollars or more. Traders said there was no doubt that the Soviet Union was in the buying market in a big way. One reliable report quoted by the Canadian Press said that Russia had bought or was on the verge of buying 36,000.000 bushels of wheat from Australia.

Speculation that a big Canadian-Russian deal was in the offing developed today when the Canadian Wheat Board announced temporary restrictions on wheat exports. Although Wheat Board officials were tight-lipped about the move, it was seen as a method of giving the | board a breathing space to i assess the supply in the light jot the pending Russian dead. Officials said they were uncertain why the Soviet Union—which generally produces more then enough wheat for its own needs—was becoming an importer. The assumption in Winnipeg was that the Soviet Union and possibly some of its satellites were having a poorer harvest than was earlier thought. Any large sale to Russia would be a big help in reducing Canada’s expected wheat stockpile of I.ooom bushels or more after the current harvest of a bumper crop. In Ottawa, a Trade Department spokesman quoted the Wheat Board Commissioner 'Mr W. C. McNamara) as saying that "some, progress had been- made” in Canada’s announced intention of completing a long-term wheat deal with Russia. But Mr McNamara was

quoted as saying lit would be “quite premature” at this time to say that a deal "of this magnitude” was on the verge of completion. .