Timber Prospects In Australia

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31922, 25 February 1969, Page 1

Timber Prospects In Australia

Dr M. R. Jacobs, the Australian DirectorGeneral of Forests, does not think much of the suggestion that New Zealand should supply all of Australia’s forest products.

“It won’t go at all,” he said! Just before his departure for) Sydney yesterday. “You have, been sending us 8 per cent; of our sawn wood imports and 30 per cent of our pulp and paper imports, so we still have to buy the rest from Scandinavia, North America and New Guinea.

rate dropped by 50 per cent through slower population growth and the use of substitutes for wood. He said Australia had to make a big effort to reduce its spending of some $6OO million a year on timber imports. Dr Jacobs predicted a growing market for New Zealand timber in Australia, however, and also in Japan. “You’re getting good markets elsewhere,” he said, “and God bless you for it. That’s what we do—we’ve got to sell in the maricet place. If you can sell in Japan you will, and the opportunity for getting good prices in Japan is very good.” Dr Jacobs said New Zealand could supply a lot of material that corresponded to Australia’s poorer qualitysoftwoods. The price was right and it was convenient to Australian customers, so they bought it. “Japan and Taiwan might take a lot of that,” he said.

“Arrangements are crystallising now for you to send us more sawn wood. You might send us 14 per cent of our sawn imports and you might bump your pulp and paper up to 50 per cent.” Dr Jacobs said New Zealand had no chance of supplying all of Australia's timber requirements, but all the state Forestry Ministers and the Commonwealth Forestry Minister were keen to see New Zealand exports of timber to Australia rise. At the present rate of consumption, Australia would never be self-sufficient in timber, but it might be if the