Govt confirms trade officer cuts

Press, 12 March 1982, Page 4

Govt confirms trade officer cuts

PA Wellington The Government confirmed yesterday that it was withdrawing three assistant trade commissioners from overseas posts, but the Opposition asserted that the move meant exports worth well over $4OO million were at risk. The office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Mr Cooper), said the jobs would be axed in Austria, Peru and South Korea as part of the Government’s 3 per cent cost-cutting exercise. Mr Cooper’s office said the officers would be reassigned,

and the immediate savings achieved would be in allowances and housing costs. Labour’s spokesman on Overseas Trade, Mr C. J. Moyle, said the cuts were short-sighted because of the loss of developing markets that could result. “For example, exports to Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union, had increased in value by more than 10 times over the last decade and now the Government has cut a vital link in its assistant trade commissioner in- Vienna,” he said. Mr Cooper’s office said a

total of six trade and foreign affairs staff, plus 13 local people, were employed at both Vienna and Lima. In South Korea. there are seven trade and foreign affairs staff, with 12 local people. The Vienna post cost $900,000 to run in the year to March 1981, Lima cost $515,000, and Seoul, $1,069,000. The High Commission in New Delhi, which the Government has decided to close, cost $684,000. The other post to be closed, in Toronto, cost $392,000.