Projects ‘likely to earn $300M’

Press, 6 May 1983, Page 3

Projects ‘likely to earn $300M’

PA Wellington An extra $3OO million was likely to be earned yesterday by three “think big” projects during the year to June, 1984, said the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, yesterday.

Mr Muldoon made the prediction at a press conference during which he reiterated that the external deficit would probably drop $BOO million in that year. The three money-earning projects would be the second Tiwai Point aluminium smelter potline, the Taranaki ammonia-urea plant, and the methanol plant due to come on stream during the year. In subsequent years they would earn more as the methanol plant reached its full annual production, and other “think big” projects started up, he said. “We are starting to see the impact in our external accounts of the ‘think big’ projects,” Mr Muldoon said.

How this would be translated into extra jobs was “another matter.”

“That is the kind of thing that we have to look at,” he said. “What it means is that the impact of the international (recovery), situation has hit us much earlier than I expected it to.”

Mr Muldoon said on Monday that the reduction in the external deficit of $BOO million during the June, 1984, year would largely be brought about by higher prices for export commodities.

He said then that the down-grading of New Zealand’s triple A credit rating to AA plus by the Standards and Poors Corporation was done too early, and the corporation did not take the new Treasury forecast into account.