FIRST-YEAR SUCCESS

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31863, 16 December 1968, Page 9

FIRST-YEAR SUCCESS

Export orders worth $BO,OOO have been gained by Canterbury Engineering, Ltd, this year, its first year of exporting. It has quoted for contracts !n 12 countries for electrical equipment such as switchgear and sub-station structures. Tenders have been sent to Australia, the Persian Gulf. Brazil, Tanzania and West Pakistan, among others. The company says it has strong hopes of winning at least some of them. Next month it will ship an $lB,OOO galvanised-steel substation structure to the Elec-

trical Supply Authority of Burma. The structure weighs about 30 tons. When erected, it will cover about three acres. The photograph shows sections of the factory ready for shipment. By next March, the company will have delivs ered a $9OOO order for a gal--1 vaniseJ-steel structure to Canr ada. Tais plant will cover two acres. 0 Canterbury Engineering, a ■_ member of the Cable-Price-t Downer group, employs about e 100 persons. The firm’s gen- ? eral manager (Mr W. I. t Wood), who is also a director, believes that it will greatly j increase its exports. i- The equipment had been ■■ sold against the toughest in- ■ ternational competition, he said, and this success showed that New Zealanders could

' lake their place In a highly i specialised industrial field, i In recent years, Mr Wood : has employed labour In the i engineering fields in the i ■ Sudan, Egypt, England, Aus- i , Itralia, Scotland and the West - Indies. He had found, he • said, that he got better effort, ■ better co-operation and higher i efficiency from New Zealand labour than from labour in , i any of the six other countries . • in which-he had worked. t “We can pay up to $53 a . ton freight to the Persian . Gulf and can still be success,|ful against international I bids,” he said. : The biggest overseas order , obtained was worth $56,000, . for air-break switchgear for > the Sydney County Council, i The product is exported I in thousands of parts in pack-

mg cases. Every part mutt be interchangeable, and mutt be supplied in a form which enables any grade of labour to take it from the cases and erect it without difficulty.