Sugar deal to remain secret

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 18

Sugar deal to remain secret

NZPA Wellington Details of a long-term sugar agreement which New Zealand has signed with Australia’s Colonial Sugar Refinery would remain secret, the Minister of Trade and Industry, (Mr AdamsSchneider) told Parliament yesterday. I Mr Adams-Schneider said] the agreement, signed earlier this year after negotiations between New Zealand and C.S.R. officials, was for the supply of 340,000 metric tonnes of raw sugar between 1980 and 1984. But because of the confidential nature of the agreement, the price being paid by New Zealand for the sugar could not be divulged, he said. , ~ , , Mr Adams-Schneider had been asked by Mr B. P. Mac-

Donell (Lab., Dunedin Central) whether it was correct that C.S.R. had offered a contract for sugar at a figure fixed below the world price. The Minister said he was satisfied that the agreement reached with C.S.R. was balanced and had significant i benefits for New Zealand. It I would provide 40 per cent of the country’s annual sugar heeds. The recent increase in the retail price of sugar was “moderate” when compared with the upsurge throughout the world in the last nine months, he said. Mr Adams-Schneider said the present price of 87c a kilogram compared with 96c for the United States, West Germany, Italy, and Great Britain; $1.16 in Sweden; and $1.76 for Denmark.