U.S. wool worry

Press, 6 March 1978, Page 2

U.S. wool worry

More bad economic news for New Zealand has come in the United States Agriculture department’s latest wool situation report, says a message from Washington. The department says carpet wool use in 1977 fell short of the depressed 1976 level, and that prospects for this year are not encour-

aging. New Zealand supplies most of the wool imported for use in carpet making. This class of woo) is not produced in the United States. From January to November. 1977, American carpet wool consumption was 11.5. M pounds, against 13.6 M pounds in 1976. The use of such wool continued to decline even though shipments carpets and rugs have risen

steadily since the first quarter of 1975. i Total carpet wool use in 1977 was 12.6 M lb, clean [basis, down from 15.1 M lb a [year earlier. As recently as 1973, more than 75M lb of j carpet wool was used in domestic mills. ' The main reason for the ' precipitous decline in the last several years has been ■ the cheaper price of man-

made fibres. ;l “Although the new housI ing and replacement carpet i markets may remain strong ! this year, wool prospects are I ’ not encouraging, and use may decline further,” the department says. t Carpet wool stocks in the . United States on January 1 this year were estimated at ’ 17.2 M lb. scoured basis, • which is about a 16-month i supply at last year’s consumption rate.

. From Wellington it is reported that Mr Ken Comber ’will lead a Parliamentary delegation to Europe to add ’background weight to New (Zealand's case for continued (access to the Continent for New Zealand sheepmeat. Mr Comber, the Undersecretary for Internal Affairs, will head a delegation comprising two National back-benchers, Miss Marilyn Waring and Mr Neil Austin, the Labour spokesman on justice, Dr Martyn Finlay, and a Labour back-bencher, [Mr Brian MacDonnel.

The team will spend a ’fortnight in Europe, from April 2 to 15, visiting Dublin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, and Luxemburg. The delegation will visit the European Commission and European Parliament.