Wool sale result ‘encouraging’

Press, 7 March 1983, Page 27

Wool sale result ‘encouraging’

PA Auckland The managing director of the Wool Board. Mr H. L. M. Peirse. has said that the improved result at this week's Auckland sale was welcome, although it was too early to say whether the trend would be sustained. He said that the over-all level of New Zealand wool sales had been encouraging. In the 12 months to the end of February, he said. New Zealand had sold wool equal to the entire annual clip, which was now running at much higher levels than three or four years ago. New Zealand produced 363.000 tonnes of wool in the year to June 1982, compared with 311,000 tonnes in 1977-78. Mr Peirse said that the improvement in the market would not make, on average, a jot of difference to the farmer. It just meant that the amount of support money

paid to him would be reduced. he said. The immediate beneficiary of the improvement was the Wool Board, which was now cutting back sharply on the payments it had to make, using funds from levies on woolgrowers, to bring wool prices up to its own minimum floor price of 250 c a kilogram. He said that the board still held a stockpile of about 392,000 bales, compared with more than 420,000 bales at the start of the season. The board was proceeding cautiously on putting much of its stockpile into the system. The new confidence in the market was “something of a fragile flower.” If the board put too much wool into the market and depressed the price again it would find itself paying out more in supplements, he said.