FINANCE FOR PORTS

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30288, 14 November 1963, Page 3

FINANCE FOR PORTS

N.Z. Gets World Bank Loan (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, November 13. Lyttelton will get £275,000 of a loan for £NZ2,500,000 from the World Bank, for port improvement. The loan is New Zealand's first from the World Bank, and five harbour boards will share in it.

The Minister of Finance (Mr Lake) said the agreement between the New Zealand Government and the In. ternational Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank) for the loan was signed in Washington this morning. The total sum is the equivalent of 7.800,000 United States dollars (approximately EN.Z.2,800.000). The rate of interest is 51 per cent per annum and the term is 25 years, with no capital repayment for the first four years.

“The Government will relend the capital sum to five harbour boards, when subsidiary loan agreements are signed, on the same terms as those applying to the principal loan,” said Mr Lake. “The loans to harbour boards will be for the overseas currency content of capital works. “The projects are for the following programme of expansion and modernisation being undertaken by harbour boards:— Details are:— Auckland: £792,143. Lyttelton: £275.000 for quay cranes at the eastern extension. Napier; £142,857. Whangarei: £1,225.714. Timaru: £350,000 for a mechanical meat loading installation, including a shed, conveyors, and rail tracks, a transit shed at an existing wharf, and cargo handling equipment.