Wool Marketing Crisis Growing

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30710, 27 March 1965, Page 17

Wool Marketing Crisis Growing

<A* Z. Press Association— Copyright) SYDNEY, March 26. Australian wool growers would be in a desperate position if some better method of marketing the Australian wool clip was not found within the next five or 10 years, the vice-president of the New South Wales Graziers’ Association, Mr B. Killen, told the association’s annual conference.

The association decided to! rrge the establishment of an i Australian Wool marketing 1 Authority as recommended by the Australian Wool Board, in j order to investigate all I possible methods of market-! ing the wool clip. Mr Killen said he was cer-j; tam there was a great future : for wool with the right sort of promotion and a good sys- I tern of marketing. •At the moment in every! field where it is employed! there is a substitute fibre' standing behind it,” he said.! “Forced Out” Mr Killen said that he) found it extremely galling! that wool, which was such a ! pood and versatile fibre for) the manufacture of clothing, j should be gradually forced) out of its market by competitors employing better promo- j non and selling methods. He said however, that be-! fore wool-marketing methods! could be developed a good) deal of basic research would; be needed. "We just don’t know what; happens to wool after it) leaves the wool floor,”, he said.

“We don't know how much of our wool is sent into the . hands of speculative merchants, or how much is being used blended with other ! fibres. “We must have that sort of information before we can go about changing our marketing promotion.” Mr Killen claimed that one of the main causes of the I present depressed state of the j wool market was the immense ; stockpile at present held by the Argentine and Uruguyan Governments. ) With this stockpile of almost a million bales of ! South American wool overhanging the world market, I prices did not rise but fell, he ) said. The association also decided !to get its wool marketing ) committee to investigate the ! possibility of establishing an ' international wool exchange jas a possible way to give I stability to international wool ; marketing.