N.Z. apples not affected

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33065, 4 November 1972, Page 3

N.Z. apples not affected

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent) LONDON, Nov. 3. New regulations, to control the importing of fruit and vegetables into the Common Market will apparently not affect New Zealand apples and pears.

The regulations were anjnounced in Luxemburg after I a meeting of Ministers of (Agriculture of the Six. The regulations will apply to fruit (coming from other countries jin Europe, but because it I arrives on the market outside j the selling season for E.E.C. produce, fruit from the i Southern Hemisphere counj tries of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa wifl ! l be exempt.

The new regulations allow, the E.E.C. Commission to close frontiers or levy additional duties when it thinks that competition is depressing prices to an unacceptable level. The Minister of Overseas Trade (Mr Taiboys)) pressed strongly for the exclusion of

,New Zealand fruit from any regulations when he was in London last month, and he! made representations in i Brussels and at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries in London. There is still no indication of when the British will an-l nounce the level of compen-! satory levies for apples and : pears which they are ex-: pected to apply over the! transition period after | Common Market entry. If these levies are set at a high level during the Southern Hemisphere selling season—(March to August—they might endanger the New Zealand trade in Britain.