IMPORT FIGURE INCREASES

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31985, 12 May 1969, Page 26

IMPORT FIGURE INCREASES

(New Zealand Press Association}

WELLINGTON, May 11.

The value of imports for the nine months ended on March 31 was $642,266,000, $148,927,000 higher than the figure of $493,339,000 for the nine months ended March 31, 1968, the Government Statistician (Mr J. V. T. Baker) has announced.

A lower percentage of these imports came into the country under the authority of import licensing schedules in the nine months ended last March than in the nine months ended March, 1968, although this percentage fell from 52.4 to 43.1.

The total value of goods imported under the authority of import licensing schedules rose from $258,458 to 5276.808.

The figure for the nine months ended on April 30 includes $22.5m worth of goods imported under the 1967-68 schedule and $254.3m imported under the 1968-69 schedule.

A further $299.3m (46.6 per cent) was imported as

goods exempt from licence, $55.4m (8.6 per cent) as Government imports and slo.Bm (1.7 per cent) under noremittance schemes. In the nine months ended March, 1968, 35.5 per cent of imports were exempt of licence, 9.4 per cent were Government imports and 2.8 per cent were imported under noremittance schemes.

Imports of manufactured goods rose from $90.6m in the nine months ended March, 1968, to $105.5m in the nine months ended on March 31, this year. However, imports of chemicals fell from $31.7m in the nine months ended March, 1968, to $23.9m in the nine months to this March.