The Press TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1965. Import Schedule

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30712, 30 March 1965, Page 12

The Press TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1965. Import Schedule

The import licensing schedule for 1965-66, announced last night by the Minister of Customs (Mr Shelton), releases from import control an impressive £45 million worth of annual imports. Importers of diverse goods from cream separators to pipe cleaners will welcome the exemption of these items. The community will save time and money by reducing the form-filling by business firms and the form-processing by public servants that wastes too many man-hours. The latest list of exempt items brings the total to about a third, in value, of New Zealand’s annual imports. Exempt items are, almost without exception, raw materials for manufacturers, producers’ equipment, or consumers’ goods not made in New Zealand. The demand for raw materials and for producers’ equipment is determined mainly by the level of internal demand, and in the past when demand has risen the Government has issued extra import licences to manufacturers short of raw materials. The pretgpce of saving overseas exchange by restricting manufacturers’ imports of certain raw materials has now been abandoned. Efficient firms in the industries affected will be able to increase production, and new firms will be assured of supplies of raw materials. Many raw materials are still subject to import control. One of the key raw materials in an advanced economy is plastic moulding powder; and that is still subject to rigid control in the new schedule. It would have been inequitable to release plastic moulding powder from import control without permitting imports of lamp-black and other requirements of rubber manufacture. Given unrestricted access to raw materials for the first time in many years, manufacturers of both plastic and rubber products would, probably, have over-imported; but not for long. For the price of one year’s over-importing—perhaps £5 million worth of temporarily excess stocks—the country would have benefited from real competition in this important field. Perhaps the prospect has merely been postponed. It is again a matter for regret that Mr Shelton has not disclosed the Government’s target for private import payments in the coming licensing year.

The 1965-66 licensing schedule brings the economy little closer to the abolition of import controls. Few economists now contend that import controls protect the balance of payments; their prime function is to protect the local manufacturer. Until an import licensing schedule providing for imports of buit-up television sets, more assembled motorcars, or made-up clothing is introduced, the consumer need not think his interests are being placed before those of the producer.