Diverse cargoes

Press, 27 February 1980, Page 18

Diverse cargoes

Almost as interesting as cargo origin or destination, is the cargo content that passes over the wharves at an international port such as Lyttleton. Exports which earn vital overseas exchange for New Zealand include frozen meat (55,700 tonnes last year), wool (38,500 tonnes), timber (50,000 tonnes), . dairy products (20,000 tonnes), coal and coke (20,000 tonnes), beans and peas (17,500 tonnes) and substantial tonnages of items as vari-ous-as grain, machinery, hides, tallow, vegetables; containerised goods .(99,500 tonnes of cargo ranging from jet boat units to household goods and from engineering equipment to woodware); and general items not individually specified in the statistics, but (at 67,500 tonnes annually) including supplies for Island destinations, heavy plant and factory output from plastic ware to books. Imports include petroleum products (614,000 tonnes last year), manures

(161,000 tonnes), motor vehicles (139,000 tonnes), iron and steel (42,000 tonnes), fruit , (38,000 tonnes, paper (35,000 tonnes), textiles (23,000 tonnes), bitumin (17,000 tonnes), and gypsum, machinery, rubber, and similar raw materials for our manufacturers, containerised goods as various as cosmetics and electrical fittings, furnishings and laboratory equipment (140,000 tonnes) and other goods outside the general categories, (almost 112,000 tonnes). In total, the port handled almost 872,000 tonnes Of goods imported from overseas, and despatched almost 302,000 tonnes of export cargo.

Coastal cargo also figured prominently on the records: goods coming into Canterbury from other New Zealand ports totalled 502.000 tonnes and 175,000 tonnes of locallyproduced or manufactured goods were despatched from Lyttelton for markets in the Auckland, Wei-, lington, Dunedin, Tauranga or Nelson districts.