Need Seen For Greater Wool Output

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30602, 19 November 1964, Page 1

Need Seen For Greater Wool Output

It had been brought home to him again on his latest trip overseas that mills in many parts of the world, and certainly the carpet mills in the United States, were wondering whether woolproducing countries would be able to expand their production, said the chairman of the Wool Board, Mr J. Acland, when he returned to New Zealand yesterday from the United States.

Mr Acland said the mills were undoubtedly looking to New Zealand as a country from which they could expect increased production. Mr Acland, who had just welcomed the decision of the Government to establish an agricultural production council to facilitate continuing consultation between the Government and the farming industry, said that unless the wool producing countries filled the void the chemical companies would. One of the

main chemical companies in the United States, which was not proaucing any synthetic materials 10 years ago, had last year turned out 40m lb of carpet yarn. This year its production would be 75m lb, and by this time next year it would be capable of producing 150 m lb annually.

In the current calendar year, Mr Acland said, carpet consumption in the United States was expected to have risen by 13 per cent and in the last 10 years it had more than trebled from 83m square yards to 255 m square yards. But a disturbing feature of this situation was that this year wool, which had up until now been the No. 1 fibre in carpets, was taking second place to the nylons. In the last few years, Mr Acland said, the synthetic fibre interests had spent tremendous sums of money on promotion, but wool’s campaign, which was the joint effort of the Wool Bureau and the Carpet Wool Council, under the auspices of Wool Carpets of America, was now getting under way. Synthetic fibre could, be bought at 74 cents per lb and wool interests accordingly had a big promotional job to do to see that the consumer appreciated a wool carpet and was prepared to pay something more for it. It was vital that everything should be done to keep up the standard of presentation of the raw wool itself, said Mr Acland. There was no doubt that this was appreci-

ated by the mills in the United States, which valued New Zealand wool because of its colour, its freedom from burr, the efforts made to present it in a uniform way and the intention to eliminate branding altogether next year. There was no question that this was generating a great deal of goodwill.

Mr Acland quoted from a publication of James Lees, one of the biggest buyers of carpet wools in the United States,

which described New Zealand wool as outstanding for its toughness and white colour.

With American woolgrowers, mills and the textile industry, Mr Acland said, the International Wool Secretariat was combining to promote American wool products in their own market.