Container talks likely next year

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32676, 4 August 1971, Page 3

Container talks likely next year

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent) LONDON, August 2.

Executives of the British Conference Lines will probably visit New Zealand early next year to discuss the future of their trade with New Zealand, the lines announced today.

The announcement, made by the acting chairman of the conference (Mr W. R. Russell) did not mention containers. But it is implicit in the statement that containers will be a major point of the talks.

It is thought that these were the talks referred to by the chairman of the Meat Board (Sir John Ormond) when he said in London last month that discussions on future trade might be held later this year. They were also the talks referred to by the chairman of the Auckland Harbour Board (Mr R. C. Savory), when he said that there might be moves for a container service within six months. The talks will not be directly connected with an earlier visit to New Zealand by executives of the lines in September to set freight rates for the year beginning on October 1. These talks were adjourned in London last month when Sir John Ormond and his negotiating team could not reach agreement with the lines. One strong prospect now emerging in London is that.

if Britain joins the Common Market, the fleet of container ships now calling at Australia might recover the reduction in Britain-Australia trade by calling at New Zealand. Proponents of this theory, who quoted sources within the Conference Lines to back it up, say that Australian trade with Britain will be sharply cut from the day Britain joins the E.E.C., which could be less than 18 months away. They also say that spokesmen for the lines have several times spoken of a “round-the-world service,” and that container ships are now running from Britain to Australia, the Far East and both coasts of America, as well as from Australia and New Zealand to America, and a call at New Zealand, on the way to'Britain from Australia could be arranged easily. Ships would sail both east and west round the world.. The official position of the lines, as stated this week by

Mr Russell, is that the lines’ decision to abapdon a container service to New Zealand stands.

The lines continue to argue in the context of other trades, however, that the use of containers is the only way to counter inflation. Sources close to the lines indicate that a container service from New Zealand to Britain would seem more viable if the present round of cost inflation could be stabilised even a little, and if progress could be made on refrigeration problems now causing some difficulty in the Britain-Australia trade. Mr Russell declined today to make substantial comment on the reaction of the political parties in New Zealand to the nil increase in freight rates obtained last week for Australian wool shipments. Mr Russell said only that the chairman of the Wool Board (Sir John Acland), had been correct when he said that the negotiations on New Zealand wool (which brought agreement on a 12| per cent

increase) could not be reopened. Other sources, however, said New Zealand would do w£ll to examine the quality of the two wool shipping services before it compared the freight rates of the two services too closely. The sources said the quality and frequency of the Aus-

tralian service would be “substantially reduced” as a.result of the nil freight rate increase, and they added that this was the sort of economy that the New Zealand Meat and Dairy Boards might have to accept if agreement on New Zealand’s refrigerated freight rate is to be reached in September. . The other point they made was that wool interests from Australia and New Zealand •play only a secondary part in negotiation of the wool freight rate, and that in both cases the major voice confronting the liijes across the table is that of the Europeans who buy the wool. “The Europeans were almost the same at both the Australian and . New Zealand talks,” one lines official said. “The difference in the two freight rates indicates many things, but among them is Mayawati at a certain time of year. It seems they are prepared to pay mbre to New Zeattnd' ' -7