EXPORTS TO AUSTRALIA

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31584, 23 January 1968, Page 9

EXPORTS TO AUSTRALIA

Special Drive In Newcastle

A wide selection of New Zealand-made consumer products would be on sale in Newcastle, Australia, starting with a special New Zealand Week promotion there next March, said the director of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association (Mr R. T. Alston).

Some 36 New Zealand consumer goods manufacturers, he said, had already been successful in selling in Newcastle and another 25 manufacturers were still negotiating sales. Mr Alston said that included in these 61 companies were 13 Canterbury manufacturers.

This was particularly pleasing as it showed that just over 20 per cent of New Zealand manufacturers interested in this promotion were from Canterbury, which contained about 14 per cent of industry in New Zealand.

Canterbury manufacturers had always been well represented in export promotions in recent years in the Pacific Basin area, particularly in South-East Asia, but this Newcastle promotion showed that Canterbury manufacturers were making strong endeavours to break into the Australian market.

The focal point of the New Zealand promotion in Newcastle will be “The Store,” at w’hich yearly trading was about $AlB.5m. As Newcastle was a medium-class area, some Canterbury manufacturers in the clothing and footwear industries were not able to make sales there because their products were considered too high in quality and fashion. However, in these cases, these manufacturers had been able to make sales in the Sydney and Melbourne area.

Now that the uncertainty regarding export incentives had been removed, a number of Canterbury agricultural equipment manufacturers were also showing interest in the agricultural exhibition at Orange, New South Wales. This was another area where it was believed some Canterbury manufacturers could develop good export business.