Big Pip-Fruit Loss

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31139, 16 August 1966, Page 1

Big Pip-Fruit Loss

(N Z. Press Association) HASTINGS, August 15. Export losses this season have completely absorbed the £428,833 Reserve Bank overdraft with which the season began and additional losses might lift the season’s deficit to £1 million or more, Mr K. B. Longmore, chairman of the New Zealand Apple and Pear Board, said this afternoon.

Mr Longmore was asked in an interview to expand on statements he made to the annual provincial conference of the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Federation in Hastings.

He told the conference that the board’s £839,000 reserve

account had been wiped out by this season’s losses, and added that growers should not be surprised if the final loss figure was more than £1 million. Talks on the economic problems facing the industry were already under way with the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Taiboys). Mr Longmore said the board did not have liquid assets to cover its losses, but it had considerable investments in building and plant. “Looked upon as a ‘going concern’ we are not exceptionally strong. On the other hand, if we were forced into liquidation our stores could be worth £3 million,” he said. Asked what he thought might be the outcome of negotiations with the Government. Mr Longmore said he would “guess” that either the boatd would issue a debenture, or it would receive an additional bank guarantee,

subject to Government approval.

Mr Longmore told growers this morning that the season had been the worst financially, in the board’s 18 years of existence.

This, he said, had resulted from conditions entirely beyond the board’s control in the United Kingdom and on the Continent.