Winding-up Urged Of Sea Products, Ltd

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31802, 5 October 1968, Page 44

Winding-up Urged Of Sea Products, Ltd

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Oct. 4. A former Westport fisherman, Mr J. Thompson, has urged creditors to force the winding-up of N.Z. Sea Products (Export), Ltd, now in receivership. Mr Thompson claims he was forced out of business when Sea Products began price-cutting in Australia and he says he does not want the same fate to befall other businesses. Mr Thompson, in the latest

issue of the magazine “Commercial Fishing,” says that he sold the fish-processing factory he had operated for many years in Westport, and moved to Christchurch five months ago. The Government, in providing financial support to Sea Products, has rendered the fishing industry a great disservice, he says. Through its uneconomic operation it has caused widespread hardship throughout the industry and its price-cut-ting activities have forced “good, economic businesses” out of exporting. “I found it impossible to compete with Sea Products’ prices which were well below my costs, and obviously now. below theirs,” Mr Thompson says. Fish exporters had painstakingly built up prices over many years, and had provided the foundation for the whole buying and marketing structure for the industry. “Almost overnight, Sea Products reduced this structure to chaos,” Mr Thompson says.