Industry Urged To Increase Efficiency

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31754, 10 August 1968, Page 1

Industry Urged To Increase Efficiency

(New Zealand Press Association)

INVERCARGILL, August 9.

New Zealand’s manufacturing industries —especially those exporting or having an export potential— must increase their efficiency to at least the standard of agriculture, said the Minister of Agriculture and Science (Mr Talboys) in Invercargill today.

“We must get some of the weight off the backs of our sheep and cows,” Mr Talboys told a luncheon gathering of 130 Southland industry, local body, and community leaders,

Economists at Lincoln College had estimated that in the decade to 1965 the productivity of New Zealand agriculture increased 4.5 per cent a year while manufacturing industries trailed with a growth rate of 2.7 per cent, he said. The main contributing factors were extra capital input and increased efficiency in the use of capital and other resources

Of agriculture's annual growth rate, 2.1 per cent was attributed to extra capital and 2.4 per cent to greater efficiency; of manufacturing's growth, 1.2 per cent came from capital and 1.5 per cent from efficiency.

Mr Talboys said he was aware of the problems facing New Zealand manufacturers. They were remote from overseas markets and the stimulus of-overseas competition, and the small size of the domestic market made it difficult to accomplish economies of scale. But the present multitude of small productive units, in which high overheads restricted flexibility, was not in the interests of expansion. Some of these small manufacturers came to the Government for development finance. When asked why they did not attempt to obtain their requirements on the financial market, they said they were afraid of losing control of their industries.

“All of us in this country have grown up with experiences, and against a background, that suggests to us that the grass always grows, that the animals will graze, the grass, that we will expoit the products and live a comfortable life.” He concluded' “There are tremendous opportunities open to us if we can get rid of the idea that, whatever happens, the grass will grow.” Recent Success The success of rationalisation within the New Zealand dairy industry, and of recent carpet exports, were examples of what could be done.

The application of science to industry opened exciting vistas, Mr Talboys said. Recently, a casual visit by a party of D.S.I.R. scientists to a freezing works had resulted in a promising process for extracting protein from works effluent and purifying the water to a stage where it could be used again for some purposes.

“Swaddling Clothes” “It is necessary that we get out of these swaddling clothes and into industries that are man-sized,” Mr Talboys said. The Minister began his address by calling for a change in attitudes in New Zealand.