Deal now up to Iran, says Wool Board

Press, 20 November 1982, Page 1

Deal now up to Iran, says Wool Board

A multi-million dollar wool-for-oil deal with Iran is still in the balance, after a visit to that country by the Wool Board’s chairman, Mr J. G. Mcllraith. Mr Mcllraith said in Christchurch yesterday on his return that he had not signed any agreement during his visit. “There are outstanding issues to be resolved,” he said. “The ball is in the court of the Iranians. They do require wool and we are prepared to work in with their preferred method of trade, whatever that may be,” he said. He thought that a commodities trade, such as a wool-for-oil deal, was most likely in view of Iran’s reluctance to spend cash. It was a matter of sitting

and waiting until the Iranians made up their minds, said Mr Mcllraith. Iran had set the conditions under which it wanted to trade, some of which were unacceptable to the Wool Board. The board had set “normal trading conditions.” Mr Mcllraith defended himself against criticism made soon after he left for Iran. His record as a defender of private enterprise trade would speak for itself, he said. A section of the wool trade criticised the board for wanting to get involved in a single-seller wool trading with Iran. “I believe an opportunity exists. It is one with which the normal trade cannot cope, and so we must investi-

gate it for New Zealand,’ said Mr Mcllraith. He said that an assertion by the chairman of the Woolbuyers’ Association, Mr Michael Moss, that New Zealand would sell good quantities of wool to Iran this year without the board was not substantiated. That was based on projected export statistics to the end of the current wool-selling year, said Mr Mcllraith. Many agreements to sell were only performance agreements and not hard contracts, he said. He had put great store on a world wool trade recovery, consequent upon lower interest rates in the main economies. Although interest rates were falling, there was no sign of an upturn in the international wool trade.