Pacific Basin Group To Include N.Z.

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31043, 26 April 1966, Page 18

Pacific Basin Group To Include N.Z.

There was no suggestion that the five countries invited to form the Pacific Basin Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development should become a common market group, said Mr J. R. Maddren, president of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation, yesterday.

Mr Maddren has just returned from a meeting of the Japan-Aus-tralia Business Cooperation Committee in Canberra, where the Pacific Basin organisation was launched. The general secretary of the federation (Mr A. R. Dellow) was with him.

Mr Maddren said he and Mr Dellow participated freely in the discussions about the new organisation, and a formal invitation to join it would soon be sent to the federation and to the Associated Chambers of Commerce in New Zealand. Their counterparts in the United States and Canada would also be invited to join with Australia and Japan to form the group. Its objectives would be co-operation for their own economic development and to try to assist in the development of less fortunate countries in the Pacific area. “It will not be a rich man’s club,” said Mr Maddren. “These five are the logical countries to start the organisation, because of their similar stages of development I am sure if other countries in the area ask to join they will be welcomed.” Bigger Markets If businessmen in the five member countries could help raise the standard of living in neighbouring countries they would gain bigger markets for themselves, and they would also help to achieve stability in the area. In the first instance the organisation would exchange information and experts among its members, and the second stage would be investment in neighbouring countries and the imparting of

knowledge and “know-how." The first meeting of the new organisation would be in Tokyo in May, 1967. “I feel that New Zealand must look closely at the development of the surrounding countries and assist them where possible," said Mr Maddren. “There is also room for more business co-opera-tion with Australia. It is a matter of importance, not only to businessmen, but to every New Zealander.” Week in Singapore

Mr Maddren also spent a week in Singapore with the New Zealand trade mission to South-east Asia. "I feel that there are many opportunities for us to trade in the Pacific area,” he said. “Trading patterns are altering considerably and it is necessary for us to make constant contacts with Pacific area markets.”

He said the duties imposed in Singapore to protect new industries, together with the low wages, made manufacturing very attractive there. Some members of the trade mission had arranged to make the component parts of goods in New Zealand and have them assembled in Singapore to overcome the duty problem. He said there was a great shortage of technicallytrained workers in the Far East. “The accent has been on university degrees,” he said, “and I feel they would be better served by expanding the technical training programme and tapering off the university degrees. "There is a slight imbalance now. The people themselves are starting to realise this, particularly when they start to put an industry together.”