CONSTRUCTIVE TRADE TALKS

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32702, 3 September 1971, Page 16

CONSTRUCTIVE TRADE TALKS

A two-day meeting between Australian and New Zealand manufacturers which finished in Christchurch yesterday had been particularly constructive, the president of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation and chairman of the meeting (Mr L. H. Stevens) said yesterday.

The parties did not underestimate the problems ahead of them but it was believed that they would be approached by both sides in good faith and in a spirit of co-operation, said Mr Stevens. His remarks were endorsed by the president of the Associated Chambers of Manufactures of Australia (Mr H. N. Herford). , Mr Stevens said a consensus of the meeting was that there was a greater amount of trade between industrialised nations than there was between non-industrialised countries, and the more the growth of industry was encouraged the better it would be for trade. He said that it was too early to assess the implications on trade if Britain joined the E.E.C., but if she did join then it would be even more important for Australia and New Zealand to build up their industries and this would tend to encourage trade between the two countries. , Mr Stevens said that in ad-

dition to the resolutions announced yesterday on the setting up of a permanent body to further the development of the New ZealandAustralia Free Trade Agreement it had been decided to press for greater co-opera-tion in standards in the two countries. This would mean greater eo-operation between the standards associations of both Australia and New Zealand in the determining of priorities and programmes with a view to arriving at common standards and testing procedures. The object of the resolu-

tion was to remove the problems that could occur through the variations in standards between the two countries, said Mr Stevens. Yesterday the organisations met Government trade officials from both countries and had talks covering the general developments of N.A.F.T-A.