Auckland Wool Rises 3½c

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31658, 19 April 1968, Page 22

Auckland Wool Rises 3½c

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, April 18. The average auction price for wool at the seventh Auckland sale of the season on March 22 increased nearly 3lc per lb on the February level, according to official figures released today by the Auckland Woolbrokers’ Association.

The price was 24.6 c, compared with 21.15 c in February. A feature of the March sale was that supplementary payments by the Wool Commission to make up to farmers the difference between the auction price and the floor price were'needed on only 17.4 per cent of the offering of 28,751 bales.

In February supplementary payments were made on 48.2 per cent of an offering of 48,763 bales.

The drop is thought to be a result of the lively demand for second-shear wool and lambs' wool, prices of which in most cases were comfortably above the floor price. Supplementary payments in March averaged only 1.14 c per lb, compared with an average of 2.66 c in February. The average price for growers, with the supplementary payments, was 24.84 c, compared with 22.43 c. The average auction price at the March sale in Auckland last year was 26 )c. At the same sale in 1966 prices averaged 33 jc.

Collier Sold.—The Union Steam Ship Company’s former collier Kaitangata was sold today to the Maritime (Liberia, Inc.), Shipping Company.—(P.A.)