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Press, 18 April 1980, Page 17

“Every country that requires modern scouring technology and equipment now looks to New Zealand first,” said Mr Clarke. . which is a tribute to the industry’s development.” Looking to the future, Mr Clarke said that he had heard it said by knowledgeable people that the existing scours would soon have the capacity to process almost the entire New Zealand clip before it was exported.

While he was certain that they could look forward to continued growth in scoured wool production, it would be unrealistic, even given the capacity, to ever expect to handle in a restricted

period all the wool that growers could produce. The changing patterns of markets that were gradually moving from Western Europe to the developing countries of Asia and Eastern Europe also appeared to rule this out. The developing countries generally liked to scour the wool they bought because labour was cheap and every processing step created employment. On the other hand every processing step that could be carried out in this country added value to the primary product with considerable benefits for New Zealand. What the developing countries did should not deter scourers who

had proved that they could produce a quality job. Three years ago the Wool Marketing Corporation had sent a trial shipment of scoured wool to China to demonstrate the expertise of the New Zealand scouring industry. The Chinese had been suitably impressed and subsequent prornotion of scoured blends had led to the development of a small market, for such wools in China, and hopefully this would grow. “This demonstrates. I think, that even in those countries which traditionally do all their own scouring there is still room for top quality products,” said Mr Clarke.