Figures 'official

Press, 23 April 1980, Page 16

Figures 'official

PA k.-uneuni Unsubstantiated ’figures taken out of context do nothing to further the economic arguments for or against an aluminium smelter says Professor Paul van Moeseke, Professor of Economics at Otago University. “I cannot continue to waste time arguing with amateurs -who are totally’ unaquainted with modern methods of international project appraisal, let alone able to apply them,” Professor van Moeseke said. For example, he' said, the figure of $llll a

I • ■ > ■ • ■ tonne of aluminium that i the Minister of Trade and Industry (Mr AdamsSchneider) asserted was . wrong was derived from ' the official New Zealand Yearbook and the Intert national Monetary Fund statistics. “So either the Government Statistician and the International Monetary Fund are wrong, or you accept the. figure of the report.” Professor van Moeseke said a number of highlyqualified New Zealand and overseas experts had worked on the study, and every figure was carefully sourced. The cost of the smelter alone was not the true cost to New Zealand. Such costs as the development 1 of hydro power had to be included and it was “deliberately misleading” to omit them.

In Indonesia, Brazil, and Canada, smelter companies paid up to 10 times less for electricity than the real cost of producing electricity in New Zealand.

New Zealand was thus attractive only because domestic .consumers would have to subsidise the price of electricity to a smelter. If true market forces were allowed to apply, “no smelter will be seen within a thousand miles of New Zealand”. Professor van Moeseke said.