Vote For Aid ‘Pleasing

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31871, 26 December 1968, Page 14

Vote For Aid ‘Pleasing

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Dec. 25. “I am particularly pleased that the international community has reaffirmed so emphatically its belief in the value of food aid,” the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) said on Tuesday.

He was commenting on a report from New York that the United Nations- General Assembly had adopted a resolution recognising the importance of food aid as a con-

tribution to economic and social progress in food-defi-cient countries. The resolution calls for a number of measures on the part of Governments and the United Nations organisations to make food aid more purposeful and efficient. Mr Holyoake said that on his instructions the resolution had been sponsored by the New Zealand delegation, which had been instrumental in securing its passage through the General Asembly. Sponsorship of the resolution was consistent with New Zealand’s activity in many international gatherings to promote greater recognition of the value of food aid, particularly in dairy products, as a means of alleviating hunger and improving nutritional standards, he said. New Zealand had been pressing in G.A.T.T. for an international dairy arrangement which would combine

measures governing commer-j cial trade with an undertak-i ing to supply increased Quan-| titles of dairy produce as food aid. The food aid proposals had I been motivated not only by • the recognition of the nutri-1 tional benefits of dairy pro-i ducts, but also because experience had shown that aid could i provide a basis for the de- i velopment of trade. “In the long term, trade ' will provide the best solution • but in the meantime only aid • transfers can achieve a reduc-I tion of the surplus stocks of • dairy products which are still accumulating in many advanced countries,” Mr Holy-1 oake said. ‘