Halfbred wools strong at Chch

Press, 15 January 1982, Page 9

Halfbred wools strong at Chch

Halfbred wool will dominate the two-day wool sale in Christchurch next week. Mr J. D. Devine, chairman of the Christchurch Woolbrokers Association, said a high proportion of the 43,000 bales to be offered were the Halfbred type. Crossbred wool would also be well represented. Mr Devine said the wool will mainly be from North and Mid-Canterbury and Marlborough. Wool from the West Coast. Nelson, and the Chatham Islands — 1000 bales — will also be offered. He said most of the wool was of only average quality. Wool from Marlborough was mainly in good order but Canterbury wool was showing signs of the difficult growing season. The style of wool was disappointing and a lot was

cotted, he said. Mr Devine thought the values paid would be similar to the last Christchurch sale, in December. Wool production, on a world-wide basis, should increase to 2.91 million tonnes during the present season. This was forecast recently in a report by the British Economist Intelligence Unit. The production this season would be 0.7 per cent higher than last season. In the 196869 season 2.95 million tonnes were produced and this figure has never been bettered, the report said. New Zealand’s share of the season's production should be 13.5 per cent — making this country the third largest wool producing nation. In the peak 1968-69 season New Zealand produced 11.4 per cent of the wool.