Board hopes exporters will lift prices

Press, 21 November 1978, Page 1

Board hopes exporters will lift prices

Jf sufficient farmers elect to sell their lambs through the owner’saccount channels, the dep-uty-chairman of the Meat Board, Mr A. M. Begg, believes that they may persuade exporters to lift schedule prices to be more in line with market prospects, Mr Begg said yesterday that the board would watch very closely to see if this was the effect of a diversion of stock from marketing under the price schedule system. Last week exporters lowered their schedules of prices for lamb because of higher processing charges and also because they expected lower prices for the product. The general manager of the board, Mr H. C. M. Douglas, says that the decline for mar-

ket reasons is in the board’s view, unduly pessimistic in the light of current market prospects. This estimate has caused the board to recommend that producers seriously consider selling their lambs through one of the owner’s account channels rather than accept current schedule prices. In the United Kingdom, too, Mr Begg said it was felt that prices had dropped more than' necessary; there was a tendency for people to react more than was necessary to a short-term situation, he said. Commenting on the increase in charges, Mr Begg said that the Ministry of Agriculture might agree that the increase was justified on the basis of the costs shown to the

Ministry, but the question that the board would like answered was whether these costs were really justified. The chairman of the board (Mr C. Hilgendorf) has been pressing for an in-depth investigation of the relative efficiency of works.

The executive director, of the New Zealand Freezing Companies’ Association, Mr P. D. Blomfield, offering justification of the higher charges, has quoted the high cost of energy, expenditure on hygiene and the ever-increas-ing cost of labour without a corresponding increase in productivity. These are matters into which the board, is pressing for an inquiry, according to Mr Begg. The board was tak-

ing this up again with the Freezing Companies’ Association, he said.

Mr Blomfield said that a substantial part of the increase in processing charges was attributable to wage costs, due partly to the former Government wage subsidy, which the companies had been absorbing since October 1, and also to the 1978 gen« eral wage order. In addition to these, the companies had also been absorbing the recent clerical award settlement, he said. However, no allowance had been made for the meat workers’ award or the tradesmen’s settlement, which had still to be settled, he said; these would be taken into account in a further increase in charges.