U.S. WOOL IMPORTS

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30481, 1 July 1964, Page 14

U.S. WOOL IMPORTS

Reduction This Year

; The United States is importing less, wool for carpet manufacture.

In the first quarter of this year imports from New Zealand fell 43 per cent, from 16m lb to 9m lb, and from Argentina 55 per cent, but more was bought from Britain and Middle Eastern suppliers. Giving this information yesterday, the chairman of the Wool Board (Mr J. Acland) said that between 1962 and 1963 the price of wool at Boston, including New Zealand second-shear, rose.2l per cent.For non-cellulosic synthetics prices remained stable, and he believed there might even have been some price cuts at the beginning of this year. . Between 1962 and 1963 -New Zealand’s share pf the American carpet-wool market rose' from 35 per cent to 39} per cent. New Zealand shipped 66.5 m lb clean, compared with 50m lb, an increase of 33 per cent, and total imports increased 17 per cent, to 168 m lb.

Mr Acland said he had been cheered when returning to New Zealand by air from the United States to hear a fellow passenger say that there was one thing he could not stand in the United States —receiving shocks when he touched a lift button while standing on synthetic carpets. Meetings Overseas

Mr Acland attended meetings of the board of the International Wool Secretariat in London, the co-ordinating council of the secretariat and American growers and Wool Carpets of America, .comprising the secretariat' and American wool importers in. the United States, as well as the conference of the International Wool Textile Organisation in Bferlin. With the chairmen of the Australian and South African Wool Boards the managing director of the secretariat (Mr W. J. Vines), Mr Acland had talks in New York with the leaders of three large textile organisations about the international woolmark scheme, and on his way home he called on the Toronto office of the secretariat and met the manager of the west coast of America branch of the Wool Bureau in Los Angeles. . .