CAUTIOUS, BUT OPTIMISTIC

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32562, 23 March 1971, Page 3

CAUTIOUS, BUT OPTIMISTIC

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 22. The managing director of the International Wool Secretariat (Mr A. C. B. Maiden) is more cautious about predicting wool prices than he was a year ago.

Asked about next season’s prices when he arrived at Wellington Airport tonight, he said: “I seem to recall I was wrong last season. "However, though I do not have a crystal ball, there are elements that make one think prices ought to rise, even if they don’t.” Last year at this time Mr Maiden predicted that wool prices would rise this season, but they have fallen. He gave the following reasons for continued optimism: Political moves in the United States and Britain to improve the economic climate. The Australian Wool Commission is no longer a new organisation and so should not unsettle the market. Increase in synthetics prices in recent months. World wool production fell

last year. Indications that Japan will buy more wool later in the year.

Mr Maiden said the world was experiencing a textile recession at present, not just a wool recession.

His price prediction last year had proved wrong because nobody foresaw the intensity of the recessions in the United States and Britain, he said. “I will tell your wool growers this week that the I.W.S. budget for the coming year in the main contributing coun-

tries New Zealand, Australia and South Africa will be pegged at last year’s level,” he said. “This is a most inopportune time to ask growers for more funds.” Mr Maiden is in New Zealand for the mid-year meeting of the Wool Board and its electoral college on Thursday. He will have discussions with the Government tomorrow.