Call for industrial export streamlining

Press, 9 April 1980, Page 10

Call for industrial export streamlining

PA Wellington It is vital that more New Zealand enterprises become internationally competitive, the chairman of the Planning Council (Sir Frank Holmes) has said.

To this end, the emphasis in industrial policy should shift towards asiss; tance to enterprises to improve their productivity

and contain costs, and away from techniques .that < New Zealand’s long-term lead to wasteful,use of resources and cost-plus -atti- ° tudes in business, he said. Sir Frank was emphasising the points made in a recent Planning Council report, “Economic Strategy, 1979,” after the publication last week of an independent report which had been wrongly attribut-

ed to the Planning Coun- : cii. . .■ ■ .- - -, ■ * ■ The; report last week.pp •’ ■■ traded problems and • s true-’ ■: ’ turaf adjfistnient •’policies" was published by the Planning Council, which had commissioned an Australian academic, Peter Lloyd, to give his views on the subject. But the Lloyd report was an independent view, in order to stimulate discussion, and did not nec-

essarily reflect the views ' .of the; Council itself, as ’ some news reports suggested,; Sir Frank’said. "“it ’is of vital ' importance that more New Zealand enterprises become internationally competitive,” he said, quoting from the Planning Council’s report. This meant giving protection on a less discriminatory and more

moderate basis, at the same time bringing in measures that would enable more enterprises to thrive in the less-protected environment.

These aims would be furthered by liberalising import licesning and by faster progress towards freeing trade and rationalising development with Australia if this could be r e n e g otiated.”