Shipping change forecast

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32460, 21 November 1970, Page 2

Shipping change forecast

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Nov. 20. Future shipping trade for New Zealand will tend towards shorter trips with an increasing need for containers and roll-on types of shipping, the commission of inquiry into New Zealand merchant shipping was told today. The former Government Statistician, Mr J. V. T. Baker, who is now a consultant in management and economic statistics, said that New Zealand exports were likely to go to a wider range of markets. These trends would probably have to' be accelerated unless terms for Britain’s

entry to the E.E.C. were very favourable to New Zealand. New markets would first require many small trial shipments which might be uneconomic from the shipping viewpoint, but the best way to be sure that these shipments moved was through a national shipping line. Mr Baker presented a plan which showed the export trade to the United Kingdom dropping from 84.17 per cent of the total in 1938 to 38.50 per cent in 1969. “We can therefore expect that the trend in trade away from Western Europe has been apparent in the last 10 to 20 years. The emphasis for shipping will be increasingly to other areas,” he said. The existing Japanese and Australian markets would almost certainly continue. Shipping between Australia and New Zealand would call for increased container

services with only a limited amount of refrigerated cargo space, Mr Baker said. Expansion in the Japanese trade would not give an opening for easy establishment of a New Zealandowned line unless positive steps were taken in this country, he said. New Zealand shipping would be able to reap the benefits of increasing trade on this route only by actively promoting the country’s national interest through agreement at Government level or through joint ventures with Japanese shipping companies.