CHALLENGE LIKELY IN REPORT Recommendation Of One Terminal, Containers

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31363, 8 May 1967, Page 3

CHALLENGE LIKELY IN REPORT Recommendation Of One Terminal, Containers

(From the London Correspondent of “The Press’’) LONDON, May 7. The Molyneux Report on containers and cargo handling will probably recommend the introduction of containers for the New Zealand export trade—although not to as full a degree as some advocates would like.

The report, which is believed to have been adopted by the New Zealand Conference Lines, will present New Zealand with a multi-million pound challenge when it is announced on May 16.

One likely recommendation is the development of only one New Zealand port as a future container terminal—a proposal which could stir up rivalries among provinces, cities and ports.

One container port could probably serve New Zealand’s needs adequately as the cargo-handling rate of a full container berth could be 10 times that achieved at conventional berths. One container port might be all that the country could could afford.

The provision of facilities at British ports for the reception of refrigerated containers will probably be as great a problem as the remodelling of New Zealand facilities. If, as expected, the shipping lines by adopting the Molyneux report have pointed firmly to the container system for the future, New Zealand will have to decide what it is going to do about it. Shipping lines may well require a greater return on investment on container ships than has been the case with conventional ships in the past. New Zealand will also be faced with the provision of all capital required for along the transport chain—depots, road

and rail vehicles, ships, containers and port terminals, improvements to roads, railways and bridges could also be needed. The National Ports Council Report published in Britain last month pointed tout that throughout the world decisions on investment, in new facilities have to be taken in advance of certain knowledge about the pattern of future development, otherwise they will not be available in time. Ports in the past could plan with confidence that the basic pattern of shipping services would change slowly. The only really firm ground at present is the assumption that ships will get bigger and container use will expand in trades and routes in which the method can be profitably applied. Container shipping services offer “maximum scope” for reduction in over-all transport costs, Sir Andrew Crichton, chairman of Overseas Containers, said at a recent United Nations seminar in London.