Caution Urged On Wool

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31774, 3 September 1968, Page 1

Caution Urged On Wool

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, September 2.

The manager of the Wool Commission (Mr H. L. M. Peirse) today warned against making too-optimistic predictions on wool prices based on the recent winter sales.

“Prices may be improving, but it’s too soon to say,” he said. “There is no neat answer at this stage as to why prices move. The factors involved are numerous and complex,” he said. Mr Peirse said that if wool reached an average of 25c per lb this season, the actual incomes of woolgrowers would improve only about ic per lb.

This would represent the increase over the average price realised last season which, together with the Wool Commission’s support price, meant growers received on average about 24.5 c per lb. The winter sales, four in the South Island and four in the North Island, generally

showed improved prices over the previous season. In the North Island, prices on an average were 3c to 4c per lb up on the prices ruling 12 months ago. In Napier, the average price of greasy wool was 21.1 c—an increase of 3.85 c on the price realised at the corresponding sale in 1967. An increase of 7.11 c was recorded for scoured wool. In Christchurch, the last sale of the new season until the end of this month, prices in round figures reached 26c per lb, against 24c last year. But at Dunedin, prices averaged 24c, the same as 12 months earlier, and the wools being offered at the last Dunedin sale were generally of higher quality than those offered last year. <