Expecting Wool Mill Activity

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31341, 11 April 1967, Page 3

Expecting Wool Mill Activity

(New Zealand Press Association)

HASTINGS, April 10. Demand for wool seemed to be reaching a stage where a recovery in wool mill activity could be expected to take place, said Mr L. M. Peirse, managing secretary of the Wool Commission in Hastings this morning.

He said the United Kingdom was reaching the end of its wage freeze period, bank rate was down, and sterling was recovering its stability. Interest rates in many European countries had receded from their former high levels. In the United States there were signs that a fresh burst of expansive activity lay ahead with reductions in bank interest rate and rallies to stock market prices. New Zealand had not been panicked into selling at unnecessarily low prices and, provided there had not been a permanent move away from wool into synthetics, benefit should be felt when the change in business activity was transmitted into the textile industry.

Mr Peirse said it should be remembered that the extent of commission intervention was not fully shown by a bald recital of the quantities of wool purchased. The over-all effect was more closely related to the volume of wool on which floor bids were made. Where commercial bids exceeded the commission’s, there was a hidden gain for the grower.