Attraction of more industry urged

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32779, 2 December 1971, Page 16

Attraction of more industry urged

With plenty of available flat land, a ready supply of labour and ready access to sea and air transport, Christchurch should be attracting a great deal more industry, said the

Mayor of Christchurch (Mr N. G. Pickering) yesterday. “A fault of the people in Canterbury is that we tend to sit back on our laurels without going out and marketing our products,” Mr Pickering said at the opening of a new stationery store built for the National Bank of New Zealand, Ltd.

C6mmending the bank on establishing the store in Christchurch, Mr Pickering said he hoped other enterprises would set up offices in the city. He congratulated the builders, Paynter and Hamilton, Ltd, on meeting the limited deadline of six months.

“They will shortly have a bigger deadline to meet,” he Said. “That they completed the store within the budgeted cost is something we will be looking towards—and so will the ratepayers.” Mr I. D. Anderson, the manager of the bank’s systems and computer department, said the stationery store had been built in Christchurch after several attempts to establish one in Wellington had failed. Christchurch had cheaper labour costs, flatter land permitting considerable expansion, and closer proximity to stationery suppliers. The 11,000 sq. ft concreteblock building, in King Edward Terrace, Woolston, has been used as a central storage and printing depot for the bank’s 120 branches since it was completed on April 1.