Big manufactured exports growth foreseen

Press, 22 October 1976, Page 3

Big manufactured exports growth foreseen

Manufactured exports could reach SI,OOOM by 1980, the Associate Minister of Finance (Mr Wilkinson) told a conference on wool marketing at Lincoln College yesterday.

In the year to June this year they were worth about $344M. (

In the opening address to the conference Mr Wilkinson was asked to desecribe the state of the New Zealand economy in the 1980 s. He amphasised that his comments would not be scientifically precise, but designed to provoke thought and discussion for the seminar.

No-one could predict accurately what the New Zealand economy would be like in the 1980 s.

If the pattern of planning projections of the Government departments most concerned with the growth of the main export-earning sectors were realised, they would have major structural implications for the economy in the 1980 s.

The Ministry of Agriculture was working on the basis of an annual 2 to 2| per cent increase in export earnings from pastoral farm products. Ulis was a lower growth rate than for the other exports, but Mr Wilkinson emphasised that the Government was basing its

policy on the assumption that in the 1980 s pastoral farming would still provide the largest share of the country’s export earnings. The Department of Trade and Industry was working on a growth target for manufactured exports of SIOOOM by 1980, which would require a cumulative annual growth rate of nearly 18 per cent. Forestry exports in 1977 were predicted to exceed S2OOM compared with not much more than SIOOM last year. For the rest of the 1970 s and much of the 1980 s the industry would, reach a plateau, but there would be a huge increase in exports in the late 1980 s and through into the 19905.

Spectacular growth could also be seen in two other export earning fields. Fish exports, to the surprise of many people, were earning S2SM a year. Officials believed this could be increased to S7OM to SIOOM within 10 years, at the rate of a 5 per cent annual growth rate. The other was tourism. The Tourist Department, working on an expected growth rate of 8 per cent a year, expected New Zealand to handle a million overseas tourists a year towards the end of the 1980 s.

Mr Wilkinson told questioners there could be no retreat from the basic issue of committal to the growth of manufacturing.

A review of the protection needed by individual industries was being made. However, the present Government was as much committed to full employment as the last and this must clearly affect their attitude to protection of manufacturing. A number of industries which had started in a “wobbly” condition were todaji competitive in the international export field. It was recognised as desirable to concentrate in those areas where there was a high skill content in the products and where freight was a relatively small part of the value.

Opportunities were coming up in some surprising places for New Zealand manufactured products, such as for boats in the United States, he said. The Government’s approach to encouragement of manufacturing was pragmatic.

The growth of one sector was not necessarily achieved at the expense of another. The recent slow growth of agriculture was something that was beyond the control of any Government. The growth of tourism could, for example, be helpful to the country’s beef industry, he said.