Closing Accra Office

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31248, 21 December 1966, Page 1

Closing Accra Office

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, December 20. The New Zealand Trade Commissioner’s office in Accra is being closed.

The Minister of Overseas Trade (Mr Marshall) said today that the Trade Commissioner, Mr J. B. McGuire, would return to New Zealand for assignment to other duties.

The post was. established in February, 1962, to help in the exploration and development of markets for New Zealand goods in West Africa, particularly in Ghana and Nigeria. Mr Marshall said the commissioner had done a great deal of useful work in bringing New Zealand products to the notice of importers in the area and in directing the attention of New Zealand exporters to market possibilities in the countries he had covered. “To this extent the post has justified the purpose for which it was established,”

he said. “Nevertheless it must be said that trade has not, in fact, developed as we had hoped it would. “Undoubtedly one reason for this is that the countries of West Africa —all of them developing countries heavily dependent on exports of primary products—are experiencing balance-of-payments difficulties of a kind with which we in New Zealand are ourselves only too familiar.

“We remain convinced that this is an area with vast market potential, and that in the future, as the problems which currently beset these coun-

tries are gradually met, our trade will grow. “In the meantime, however, with our limited financial and personnel resources, we have decided with regret that the maintenance of the Trade Commissioner’s office is not warranted. We look forward to the time when circumstances will justify its reestablishment.

“We shall, by no means, be losing touch with the area, because the Senior Trade Commissioner in London already has, and will continue to have, useful contacts with principal trading agencies, and a great deal of the trade, in fact, is through London.”