Singapore, Malaysia visit as prize

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33774, 21 February 1975, Page 6

Singapore, Malaysia visit as prize

The seventh Skellerup Young Farmer of the Year, who will be selected in Wellington on August 15 when the Governor - General, Sir Denis Blundell, will present the prize and give the address, will subsequently visit Singapore and Malaysia as part of his prize.

For the first three years of the contest a trip to Australia was part of the prize and in the last three years the winner has gone to Hawaii.

Mr James Collins, director of marketing for the Skellerup group of companies, has just returned from Singapore and Malaysia where he arranged for the visit of this year’s winner.

In Singapore Mr Collins said he had met Mr G. Bogaars, first permanent secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who had arranged for officers of the Ministry of Agriculture and Industrial Development to show the young farmer ! what was going on in Singa-1 pore.

Mr Runme Shaw, the Asian financier and chairman of the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board, had also assured him that when the Young Farmer of

the Year and his wife or another young fanner arrived in Singapore the board would see that they were shown the tourist attractions of Singapore. “An Asia in miniature, our republic with its many and varied festivals, cultures, religions and exotic cusine will, I am sure, delight and enchant the winner in particular and New Zealanders in general,” Mr Runme Shaw said in a message.

In Malaysia Mr Collins met officers of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and visited part of the country and

saw some of the things that the Young Farmer of the; Year will also see — the j 45,000-acre rubber planta- i tions under a director who j not only employs thousands of workers but also is responsible for their social and welfare interests, the big tin mines, and extensive rice fields and palm oil plantations and also the; agricultural college in Kuala' Lumpur. Now that Malaysia had I discovered oil in two places off the coast this,. added to their rubber, tin, palm oil and timber promised to make it a very wealthy country, said Mr I Collins.