Sacks and wool packs expected to last

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32804, 3 January 1972, Page 8

Sacks and wool packs expected to last

Although the India-Pakistan war has upset the flow of sacks and wool packs from Pakistan to New Zealand, importers said on Friday that the situation for the coming harvest and the rest of the wool season was pretty well covered.

Some temporary embarrassment in servicing the harvest may occur.

Mr S. T. Newton, managing director of the Textile Bag Company of Christchurch, said that until about six years ago virtually all of New Zealand’s requirements had come from India, but the situation had changed so that Pakistan was the principal supplier of sacks and wool packs. With supplies from Pakistan cut off in the meantime, the demand is again being filled from India.

Mr K. Tyrrell, manager of the import division of the trading branch of the NMA Company of New Zealand, Ltd, in Dunedin, said that before the trouble in East Pakistan supplies could be purchased from Pakistan at prices about 40 per cent lower than prices in India. Eventually it is expected that supplies will again become available from Pakistan and this may reduce prices. The Carpentaria, which would be loading in Calcutta this week, was expected in Lyttelton on February 11, he said.

Mr Tyrrell said that in the last year the company’s imports were about half from Pakistan and half from India, but before the trouble broke out in East Pakistan in March the bigger part of the trade was with Pakistan.

Mr Newton said that the war had caused some upset but he believed that nearly all the supplies not now available from Pakistan were coming from India, and a fair volume was also coming from Thailand. There should be enough to go round. The Tanda is due in Lyttelton on January 10 with sacks and packs and hessian goods from India and the Kweichow is also due early in the month with sacks from Thailand. Now over

While there was still a small balance of wool packs to come, the crisis in the supply had passed, Mr Tyrrell said. There had been a critical period but it had been possible to swap round supplies in various parts of the country to help meet the problem. The report in "The Press” (on Friday that 30,000 nonBengalis were facing death from starvation or revengeseeking Bengalis in the world’s largest jute mill, belonging to the Adamjee family, about 14 miles from Dacca, revived memories for Mr Newton of a visit he made to the mill in 1968. Mr Newton said that there were three mills each with 1000 looms in the complex

which covered 300 acres. The mills, on which construction had started in 1950, had cost £7.5m and the annual output was worth about £lsm. The labour force numbered about 25,000 and amenities included workers’ residential quarters, dispensaries, schools, a nursery, recreation rooms, clubs and sports facilities. Mr Newton said that the best jute was grown in East Pakistan, where there were 24 mills.