IMPORT CONTROLS Timetable set for removal

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32665, 22 July 1971, Page 2

IMPORT CONTROLS Timetable set for removal

(New Zealand Press Association!

AUCKLAND, July 21.

Priorities for the removal of import control were set out today by the Minister of Finance (Mr Muldoon) in an address to the New Zealand Bureau of Importers and Exporters in Auckland.

Mr Muldoon said the Minister of Customs (Mr Adams« Schneider) had last year appointed an interdepartmental committee on the matter.

Some of the committee’s recommendations had already been implemented, for example the exemption of virtually all the remaining raw materials not made in New Zealand, Mr Muldoon said.

The Minister said various approaches could be made to the review of the remaining items under direct control over a period of five years, but the order selected by the Government after considering the committee’s report was:

Firstly, materials, components, and machinery which were common to a

cross-section of industry; Secondly, materials and components up to and including final products used as a raw material or

components by other industry; and Thirdly, other goods on the basis of reasonably large segments of particular industries, ranging from the basic raw material to

the final product.

The Government intended to proceed on an industry basis.

“Priority in selecting industries for review will generally be given to those which already have unrestricted access to raw materials and other inputs, to those in which the existing level of protection appears to be high, and to those which are significant in the cost structure of the export industry,” said Mr Muldoon.

Age benefits.—At December 31, 1970, an estimated 75,000 persons, aged 65 and over, were receiving age benefits, compared with 146,000 receiving superannuation benefit, says the Social Security Department’s report. —(P.A.)

Lists would be announced at regular intervals beginning in October, and objections would be referred directly to the Tariff and Development Board rather than first to the Emergency Protection Authority. The authority would continue to handle temporary protection cases where urgent action was sought. The board would be divided to speed up the processing of hearings and additional members would be appointed, the Minister said. “The whole programme will be run flexibly, and there will be adequate opportunity for those industries affected by the proposals to make representations on their own behalf,” he said.

By collating tariff items into industry groupings, whole or reasonably substantial segments of industry could be examined at one time.

“An important aspect of the review will be the investigation of inputs for our export industries," he said. “The exemption from licensing of materials and other inputs not produced in New Zealand that has already taken place must assist our export industries.” Mr Muldoon said the early review of the protection afforded local industries, the products of which were significant either generally in the country’s cost structure or which directly influenced exporters’ costs, was consistent with the Government’s broad economic object of encouraging the movement of resources into internationally competitive industries.

“There will be a limited number of cases where Government commitment to an industry may necessitate the holding of import licensing in the meantime on certain products, but it is not considered that this in itself should preclude the review of goods later in the production chain in the industry concerned,” he said.