U.S. gains lend urgency to Minister’s visit

Press, 18 January 1979, Page 3

U.S. gains lend urgency to Minister’s visit

NZPA Washington The chief American multilateral trade negotiator Mr Robert Strauss, has said that the United States is not making significant agricultural concessions in Geneva, but has won valuable concessions from several coun tries, including New Zealand.

American concessions, on the other hand, had been kept to “fairly modest” proportions.

Mr Strauss’s address to the American Farm Bureau Federation in Miami emphasised the importance of the visit to Washington next week by the Minister of Overseas Trade (Mr Talboys). . A session with Mr Strauss is included in the trade talks Mr Taiboys will have in Washington next Monday and Tuesday. He will argue for improved access to the United States for New Zealand dairy products, in the context of the multilateral trade negotiations, which are nearing an end in Geneva.

Mr Strauss said yesterday that the final arrangement worked out at Geneva would include reductions in trade barriers worth SUS 3 billion to American agricultural exports.

Japanese concessions were about SUSI.S billion, and those by Europe about SUS7OOM.

“Valuable concessions have also been negotiated with Canada, the Nordic countries, Australia, New Zealand, and several developing countries,” Mr Strauss said.

“In exchange we have kept our agricultural concessions fairly modest and, although they touch some sensitive areas, they will cause little, if any, pain.”

New Zealand sources said later that they believed the American agricultural offers ♦o New Zealand were “Too piodest.”

"We have accommodated American requests to New Zealand, and we are now pressing the Americans to Jie more forthcoming,” . the sources said.

f New Zealand agreed last year to reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers on a Tange of American products including fruit, nuts, tobacco, and industrial goods. , Specific American offers to New Zealand have not been released, but it is believed chat access for cheese might be improved and tariffs on New Zealand carpet yam, lamb, and beef might be lowered. However, butter has apparently not been included.

New Zealand sells only token amounts of butter to the United States and the domestic industry is bitterly opposed to any lowering of barriers against butter imports. Mr Taiboys will reiterate New Zealand’s dependence on agricultural trade, and urge a more liberal approach on concessions to New Zealand.

A visit to the lion’s den of

Dublin may also be added to Mr Talboys’s negotiating rtip, the Press Association reports from London.

As well as Washington, he will visit Brussels, London, and Ottawa in a bid to make sure that New Zealand does not get lost in the fine print of any agreement reached at the drawn-out Geneva trade talks.

It is believed that officials in Wellington have also suggested Mr Taiboys go to the Irish capital — the home of the most intransigent opponents to concessions for New Zealand. The Irish have said quite openly that New Zealand can keep its butter and cheese. Their Agriculture Minister (Mr Joe Gibbons) is well aware of the New Zealand issues, but it seems possible that if Mr Taiboys can meet the Irish Prime Minister (Mr Lynch) he will go to Dublin. No high-ranking New Zealand Minister has met Mr Lynch since he came to power in 1977. It appears that Mr Taiboys will arrive in Brussels on Wednesday for a day of talks and then go to London before he returns to North America at the end of the week.

For a change, New Zealand’s direct trading problems with the European Economic Community have not prompted the visit. Mr Taiboys will talk to key officials, urging upon them the necessity for agreement in Geneva.

The so-called Tokyo round of trade talks, aimed at freeing up world trade in the 1980 s, began five years ago. Two deadlines have passed, but it is now hoped that the talks will finish late next month or in March.

On the European trade scene, New Zealand mainly wants to resume exporting cheese to Britain. Under E.E.C. law, it stopped doing so at the end of 1977. The Irish would like to dash these hopes. Whether a resumption is agreed to depends on what concessions and guarantees the E.E.C. can get from the United States at Geneva. If the E.E.C. can sell more of its cheese in the United States, New Zealand could jbe allowed to sell a token amount — it is pressing for 15,000 tonnes — in the E.E.C.

Mr Taiboys is likely to reinforce points already made by New Zealand officials at Geneva.

In Brussels, he is expected to meet the Agriculture Commissioner, (Mr Finn Olav Gundelach) and the External Relations Commissioner (Mr Wilhelm Haferkamp). Both have been directly connected with the Geneva talks. In London, Mr Taiboys is likely to see the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Silkin) and the new Secretary of State for Trade (Mr John Smith).

While urging fruition for the Geneva talks is the main aim of the trip, Mr Taiboys is not likely to pass up the opportunity to discuss New Zealand’s “bilateral” problems with the E.E.C.

Corporal P. Milner (above), who is New Zealand’s champion flugel horn player, last Friday found that he has been awarded a fellowship of Trinity College, London. Corporal Milner, a tutor with the New Zealand Army Band for the last seven years, sat the examination for the award last November. He said that he had not thought he had a chance of passing “because he had not played very well.” Preparation for the examination took him IS months but it was “slogging” all the way, he said. Corporal Milner has been playing brass instruments for 18 years although he has only been playing the trumpet he is holding for a few months. He intends to go to university part-time this year to further his musical studies.