Centralised wool-selling plan under consideration

Press, 7 January 1983, Page 12

Centralised wool-selling plan under consideration

Christchurch. Dunedin, Wellington and Napier have been suggested as centralised wool auction centres in a report on the future of the wool-selling system.

Under the new scheme, which has been proposed by

a group set up to study the increasing costs and physical limitations of the present system, Timaru, Invercargill, Wanganui and Auckland would continue to be important wool receival centres.

The report was prepared for the Wool Auction Sales Committee and has been circulated as a discussion topic. The chairman of the study group, Mr Sandy Cassie, said the report was a starting point for the stream-lining of the selling system, but a lot more detailed study and discussion was needed before any decisions were made.

Mr Cassie said the present system was in need of urgent review and the recommendations had been made for the wool industry to debate, according to the New Zealand Wool Board's Wool World magazine. The wool flow patterns under the present system

were limited by physical problems of handling samples for appraisal and sale during peaks, said the report. The high cost of buyers attending sales, particularly in times of weak market demand, was another reason for an urgent review. Mr Cassie said there would be some fears that unemployment in the affected areas would be aggravated. "But the wool will still pour into these centres in the same manner it has always done. It will still have to be handled in the store and readied for shipment to the buyer. “The only change will be that wool valuation and physical auction sales will be held in neighbouring centres," said Mr Cassie. Sale by sample was the key to any modification and now made it possible to take

the sample to the buyer instead of the buyer to the sample. The benefits of centralising the bulk of wool auction selling activities include a fortnightly opportunity over much of the season to offer wool for sale; a weekly sale in each Island late in every week would virtually eliminate week-end work for buyers and reduce week-end work for brokers: a substantial reduction in buyers’ travel and costs; display and sale facilities would be better utilised during longer periods; an ability to spread the wool flow more evenly over a longer period; changes in sale methods and data processing could be used to better advantage; and increased production could be more readily catered for by introducing two-day sales without increasing travel and accommodation.