GOLDEN BAY CEMENT

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33063, 2 November 1972, Page 19

GOLDEN BAY CEMENT

New carrier i needed (SZ. Press Association) WELLINGTON. Oct. 31. Decisions to purchase additional carrying capacity would have to be made soon, the chairman of Golden Bay Cement, Ltd, (Mr D. O. Whyte) said at the annual! meeting. The motor vessel, Golden Bay, was approaching the end of her working life and the board expected to receive a report on the shipping operations from a firm of consultants before the end of the year. A new ship would involve substantial capital expenditure. “But thanks to the policy we have followed in the last years we will be able to meet it from our own resources,” Mr Whyte said Sales during the last months in the Wellington area were down on the previous year, but sales in Auckland and Christchurch were buoyant, Mr Whyte said. The Government's actions had had some restraining effect on the wage-pnce spiral. "In our ease, wages and salaries increased during the year by $135,176 or 10 per cent,” he said.

The restriction on dividends was grossly unfair when one remembered that only last week a 4.2 per cent general wage order came into force. The restriction was unfair tp an important section of the community which provided most of the risk capital on which industry depended, Mr Whyte said.