Fruit Import Season Confused In Britain

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31659, 20 April 1968, Page 18

Fruit Import Season Confused In Britain

(P.A. Staff Correspondent) LONDON, April 18. Seldom has a season for the British importation of apples and pears from the Southern Hemisphere begun with so much confusion for both producers and the trade, a correspondent of the “Financial Times” reports.

This is because of the many factors that have entered the picture since this time last year—including sterling devaluation, massive freight increases, the closure of the Suez Canal, the introduction of new British grading regulations, the launching of a scheme for a British producers’ organisation to market Australian fruit, and an increase, to the end of June, in the amount licensed to be imported from Northern Hemisphere sources, writes the newspaper’s correspondent. The rise in Northern Hemisphere imports, resulting from a shortfall in the home crop, pulled South Africa’s opening prices down by about BNZI a bushel below last season’s exceptionally high values, but since it became known a fortnight ago that the South Africans were, for the first time, going to store apples in Britain, as they regularly do pears, a recovery of some NZ5Oc a bushel has taken place. The South Africans are taking care not to force prices up far enough to encourage more of the licensed winter imports. It now seems, the “Financial Times” correspondent writes, that the 3.8 million bushels early expected from South Africa was an overestimate, and that shipments may total little more than last year’s 3.5 million bushels. New Zealand’s season, in which more than 1.5 million

bushels will arrive began well, with Cox’s —the only ones of this variety about Having devalued even more than Britain did. New Zealand has escaped the bite out of their returns that South African and Australian producers are having to accept, the correspondent writes. For Australia, the prospect is filled with gloom. In a

year when British buyers are returning from visits with accounts of how superb the fruit is, Australian exporters do not sec how they can possibly make a profit. Freight alone this year amounts to some SNZ2 a bushel, compared with the figure of about JNZI.SO regarded as too much a year ago.