More Timber Sold Overseas

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31463, 1 September 1967, Page 22

More Timber Sold Overseas

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, August 31.

New Zealand’s timber industry had provided more than $l.l million additional overseas exchange this year because it had exported more timber and imported less, the Minister of Forests (Mr Maclntyre) said today.

The industry had taken up the challenge of selling more overseas and earning the exchange New Zealand needed. “The N.Z. Forest Service

alone has signed contracts this year for new business worth $1.7 million,” he said. Mr Maclntyre said that during the April-June quarter this year, log and sawn tim--1 ber exports had earned about $460,000 more than in the same period last year, i Lower imports of North American softwoods and other timbers had saved about $340,000. The New Zealand economy had thus benefitted by some $BOO,OOO in the three-month period, Mr Maclntyre said. He predicted that exports of logs would earn about $5.8 million this year. New Zealand log exports reached a record level of 6.3 million cubic feet in the AprilJune quarter—34 per cent more than the exports for the same quarter in 1966, the Director-General of Forests, Mr A. L. Poole, said today. Exports of sawn timber were 8.3 million board feet—--8 per cent up on the same quarter in 1966.