Display Centre Opened

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31206, 2 November 1966, Page 18

Display Centre Opened

There was a tendency for Australians and New Zealanders to accept that goods manufactured in the older industrial nations were better than those manufactured locally but the Canterbury Exhibition Centre showed how wrong that was, said the Australian Trade Commissioner in the South Island (Mr M. G. B. Coultas) at the opening of the centre yesterday.

The centre, which is in the White Hart Arcade, was opened by the Mayor of

Christchurch (Mr G. Man-' ning). “In both Australia and New Zealand we need increasingly to promote and display our goods within and without our countries,” Mr Coultas said. Th£ directors of the exhibtion centre were to be congratulated on establishing something new in the South Island, something that would play an increasingly important part in the development of the area. “In both Australia and New Zealand new manufacturing industries are growing rapidly but they are often hampered in competition with industries from the rest of the world by the smallness of the I domestic market. i “It seems to me, therefore, I that manufacturers in both countries should be thinking

in terms of a Tasman community,” he said. Mr Coultas said that he would like to see the Canterbury centre regularly displaying Australian goods and raw materials and to see similar displays in Australian cities

Mr Coultas said that he believed manufacturing would grow substantially in New Zealand in the next decade and development in Canterbury would be as great as anywhere. Christchurch could ibecome a major industrial I city, but if industry was to i grow and contribute to national development, it had to Ibe efficient industry, able to jwithstand competition from the rest of the world without undue protection, and with reasonable prospects for exporting a portion of its products.

Mr T. M. McMullen, the general manager of Canterbury Exhibition Centre, Ltd., said that the centre fulfilled two main roles. It provided a place for manufacturers, agents and retailers to display their products in an attractive setting and it allowed the public to see those proi ducts and to have their problems solved. Mr F. Tomlinson, the chairman of directors of the centre said that it was proposed to make the centre an asset to Christchurch and the South Island. Part of the centre would be available for exhibitions by organisations to promote such causes as water and mountain safety, he said. The photograph shows the Mayor (Mr G. Manning) opening the centre.