Meat-for-oil deal slow to get moving

Press, 30 June 1982, Page 3

Meat-for-oil deal slow to get moving

PA Timaru Almost a month after the announcement that a meat-for-oil deal had been signed with Iran, little meal has left New Zealand.

Only one ship has sailed, from Dunedin, and the Meat Board is still unable to give any indication of when the next vessel will sail.

The Matangi. which has been loaded at Timaru. has been ready to sail since the day the contract was signed. the chairman of the Meat Board. Mr Adam Begg, said yesterday that there had been delays in ships sailing for Iran.

He said it took a "certain length of time for the payment procedure to follow through" and there appeared to be some delays. However, there were no problems with the deal.

The general manager of

the board. Mr D. J. C. Freeman. said when approached in Wellington yesterday that the follow-through of payment was not the cause of the delay. "There are still one or two things to be sorted out as far as the terms of the contract are concerned, but they do not seem to be very important." he said.

Mr Freeman said the Matangi would be the next vessel to sail from New Zealand with meat for Iran. She is carrying 3700 tonnes of meat and has been at Timaru since May 3. The vessel's cargo amounts to 6 per cent of the 60.000 tonnes the Meat Board has arranged to sell to Iran. The deal with Iran is estimated to be worth $2OO million, which would mean the Matangi's cargo is worth about $l2 million.