Record Exports—And Imports

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31982, 8 May 1969, Page 14

Record Exports—And Imports

New Zealand’s receipts from exports in March totalled $lOO million, the highest monthly total ever recorded. This was no flash in the pan, for export receipts in the 12 months ended March were also a record, at $954 million. So were payments for private imports, at $694 million. It is important to keep both figures in mind, especially in any comparison with earlier figures. This is particularly true if predevaluation (November, 1967) figures are to be compared.

Private imports reached a pre-devaluation peak of $661 million in 1966. To buy the same quantities of imports today, from the same sources as in 1966, would cost about $BOO million. Receipts from exports in that year were $B2O million, equivalent to about $990 million in today’s currency. Neither import payments nor export receipts have yet reached those levels; encouragingly, import payments have risen only $33 million since 1966 while export receipts have risen $133 million. But import payments are now rising more rapidly than export receipts. The Government Statistician’s projections for import payments for the year ending this September are $741 million—s 47 million more than in the last March year. Unofficial forecasts of export earnings in the year ending September range from $950 million to $lOOO million—an increase on the March figure of $46 million, at the outside. Even so, there is no ground for alarm in the import figures, actual or projected. The small Increase so far reported, and the larger increase now expected, have been more than offset by increases in export income since 1966. Some reduction in the handsome trade surpluses reported since devaluation npy be expected this year. Beyond that, the real worry is likely to be maintaining export receipts in the face of competition from dumped primary produce in New Zealand’s main export markets. In that event imports may again have to be curbed, as they were in 1967 and 1968; in the meantime, an annual level of $750 million or so for private imports can be comfortably sustained.