Market In Philippines For N.Z.

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31029, 7 April 1966, Page 3

Market In Philippines For N.Z.

(N.Z. Press Association) I WELLINGTON. April 6. An executive vicepresident of a worldwide Filipino exportimport firm, Mr James Huang, said in Wellington today that it was not an economic proposition for his country to buy New Zealand cattle and apples at present. Irregular shipping and high transport costs were the main barriers. Mr Huang, who called on the Apple and Pear Marketing Board while in Wellington.

[will leave shortly for Australia, Singapore, Saigon (his firm supplies steel products to the United States armed forces in Vietnam), Hong Kong, and Tokyo. Three years ago Mr Huang, representing his firm, Reliance Commercial Enterprises, visited Australia and New Zealand to try to arrange for the export of live cattle for a proposed combined freezing works and canning plant in the Philippines, but because plans then were -o nebulous no real progress was made in New Zealand. Lack of Shipping Another stumbling block to! such a scheme was lack of : shipping, and the lengthy; period of about 40 days for: the round trip from New Zealand. Last year the company im-,

jplemented for the first time [its killing and distribution [scheme, with a Danish shipping company transporting live cattle from northern Australia to Manila. The round trip took 21 days. Mr Huang said that at the moment the plant was working at only 30 per cent capacity, but with the experience gained as time passed this percentage would increase and so would the need for more and mere supplies. Ready Market

If New Zealand could bring its shipping costs more into line with those of Australia, it would find a ready market in the Philippines. As an experiment, his firm last year imported a small quantity of frozen New Zealand mutton. Mutton coul(f be eaten by the Moslems, who

represent 10 per cent of the population and who did not touch beef or pork. The shipping company which carried the cattle to the Philippines also transported Australian mutton to Kuwait in the Persian Gulf. “Could this shipping company carry New Zealand mutton there too?” he asked. Reliance Commercial Enterprises, as sole agent in the Philippines for the Apple and Pear Marketing Board, last year received about 18,000 cases of apples from the Dominion.

Again, lack of regular shipping and high transport costs, combined with the quite considerable shipments of apples from Australia to the Philippines, naturally restricted the quantify that could come from New Zealand, he said.