N.Z.-Manned Bulk Carrier Service

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32030, 3 July 1969, Page 26

N.Z.-Manned Bulk Carrier Service

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, July 2. A bulk cargo ship which is expected to be the nucleus of a new shipping company trading to the East will be acquired by New Zealand interests in about two weeks.

The ship would be manned and operated by New Zealanders, the managing director of the Mount Maunganui Stevedoring Company, Mr R. Owens, said in a telephone interview from Tauranga today.

Mr Owens said he was negotiating with Asian shipping interests for the longterm charter of vessels. He could not reveal at present the name of the interests with whom he was dealing, the name of the ship, and its size.

No opposition was expected from Conference Line vessels. Bulk carriers were out of their line and in the trade in which his company was interested, the demand for ships exceeded the supply. Mr Owens said that he had no doubt about the economics of the long-term chartering of ships and the manning them by New Zealand crews. He had had first-class cooperation from the Seamen’s Union. In the last six months of 1968 Japan imported timber and timber products worth slom from New Zealand, almost all of it shipped through Mount Maunganui. In the same period goods worth more than s3om were exported to Japan, from New Zealand.