Bilateral trade likely to grow

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32586, 21 April 1971, Page 3

Bilateral trade likely to grow

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 20. More direct bilateral or reciprocal trade arrangements seemed inevitable for New Zealand, Mr R. J. Tizard, member of Parliament for Pakuranga, said today.

Addressing the Auckland Creditmen’s Club, the Labour finance spokesman said that China now loomed largest

among countries with whom reciprocal trade must be considered. Whether or not Britain joined the Common Market, New Zealand had a problem, not just of selling her present production but of finding outlets for the increases essential if standards of living were to be increased.

This led not only to a need for new markets, but also to the development of new products and new forms of old products.

Mr Tizard said that past trading was based on multilateral arrangements and dependent on an adequate level of overseas funds, mainly kept in London. But the new pattern of trade must take us to countries that had not traditionally adopted this form of international dealing for the major part of their business.

“It seems inevitable that we have got to go into more direct bilateral or reciprocal arrangements, through which we buy and sell approximately equal values of goods, without resorting to the international money market to finance deals on a multilateral basis,” he said. The situation must include much more reciprocal trade with countries that were now relatively unimportant to us, often because they did not have the means to buy what we wanted to sell. “This is not to advocate barter as a method of trade. It is to accept the fact that we can only sell where we are prepare to buy, in many instances.” Of trade with China, Mr Tizard said that with the recent thaw in relations between China and the United States, there was a real possibility that New Zealand, having slavishly followed the United States line for so many years, could be left out in the cold as the last either to recognise or gain the advantages of recognition.