BIG WESTERN AUST. MARKET Shipping blocking S.I. exports

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32542, 27 February 1971, Page 18

BIG WESTERN AUST. MARKET Shipping blocking S.I. exports

(N Z.P A. Staff Correspondent)

SYDNEY, February 26. Transport problems, particularly in shipping, are blocking development of New Zealand trade sales in Western Australia.

Prospects of market penetration of New Zealand textiles, carpets, building materials, foodstuffs and other goods are bright—if the products can be delivered in Perth. But the service to Western Australia, run by the Union Steam Ship Company, offers only about half a dozen ships a year at irregular intervals. According to New Zealand trade officials, enormous transport difficulties and expense faced by many New Zealand exporters in getting their products to the berth are inhibiting trade. South Island traders are most affected. Nearly all the ships sailing from New Zealand to Western Australia load at Tauranga, mainly with newsprint, and top off with merchandise at Auckland. Because they do not load in the South Island, exporters must ship goods to the North Island for trans-shipment to vessels bound for Perth. This adds to costs. The reverse also applies. Only about one ship a year unloads West Australian goods in the South Island.

trans-shipment The alternative, for both North Island and South Island exporters, to the irregular New Zealand-Western Australia direct shipping service is trans-shipment of exports at Sydney for carriage to Perth by Australian coastal vessels or inter-continental trains. But this also poses problems. The sea-freighters used by the Union Company are not compatible with containers in

Australia and goods must be unpacked, customs-cleared, then repacked. This adds substantially to costs without considering the extra 7c per lb involved in freighting across Australia by rail or sea.

Such extra charges can make New Zealand goods uncompetitive in a market which is closer to South Africa, Singapore, and other parts of Asia than to New Zealand. Another drawback to development of trade is the fact there are no facilities for refrigerated cargo on the union Company vessels sailing to Western Australia. The Union lines faces its own problems in increasing frequency of service, problems caused mainly by the amount of cargo offering which has to be higher to justify more ships. “I don’t know what the answer is,” said the New Zealand senior Trade Commissioner in Sydney (Mr A. C. Davys) who has just returned from a visit to Perth.

“Some of the transport difficulties appear insoluble; but if we can overcome them

export prospects are encouraging. As long as we can deliver merchandise in the west when buyers want it, at the right price, we should be able to sell to West Australians the entire range of goods we land elsewhere in Australia. “The market is there, an open market, but transport is the limiting factor.” TRADE MAN New Zealand appointed its first trade commissioner to Perth in mid-1970. He is Mr A. F. Jacobsen, who earlier was in Brisbane. He has initiated several big deals for New Zealand exporters in the last few months and export figures are expected to be up in the year ended June 30 In the 1968 June year New Zealand sales to Western Australia were $2.2m. They grew to $2.9m in 1969 and were s2.Bm to June 30, 1970. West Australian exports to New Zealand in the same periods were $4.3m, $3.6m, and $3.2m, respectively. The main items shipped to New Zealand are hardwoods and titanium for sand moulds, copper sulphate and pig iron.