Million-dollar cut in apple exports to Europe

Press, 9 February 1985, Page 2

Million-dollar cut in apple exports to Europe

By

PETER O’HARA,

NZPA staff correspondent London New Zealand will make a million-dollar-plus cut to proposed apple shipments to Europe, and marketing representatives are relieved they have not been forced into a much worse situation. More than 70,000 tonnes is reliably believed to have been the Apple and Pear Marketing Board’s original estimate of what it would send to Europe from the harvest that will start in two weeks. But northern producers with big surpluses have put pressure on E.E.C. bureaucrats to restrain imports from Southern Hemisphere growers, and New Zealand has dropped its estimate to 65,000 tonnes. South Africa, Argentina, Chile, and Australia have also reduced tonnages. Mr Brian Aitken, the New Zealand board’s general manager-designate for Europe and the Middle East, said he was relieved

that the European Commission had advised him there would not be formal restrictions. “It was touch and go ... we have been able to negotiate our way into a situation where there is not a formal restraint and quota on us this year,” he said. The estimated Southern Hemisphere imports dropped from the initially proposed 429,000 tonnes to 350,000 tonnes, Mr Aitken said. “They were trying to restrict total imports from the Southern Hemisphere to below 300,000 tonnes, which would have been very serious for us. “If that had been the case, New Zealand would have had somewhere between half a million and one million cartons with nowhere to go.” Mr Aitken said that that represented between $l2 million and $l5 million. The negotiated cut is more than SIM worth of

apples, according to industry sources. They also say the New Zealand board is not greatly concerned because the product can go to the American market, which is in good shape. Mr Aitken said Northern Hemisphere stocks on January 1 were 2.5 million tonnes — up about 100,000 tonnes in a year. There are suggestions that 800,000 tonnes of Northern Hemisphere apples could be destroyed because of the stockpile, he said. One factor which “saved us" was the cold spell of weather in January in the Northern Hemisphere. “It destroyed a reported 750,000 tonnes of Spanish grapefruit, oranges, and lemons and we were able to argue that the consumption of apples would increase.” The first shipments of the New Zealand harvest are due to arrive in April at Antwerp in Belgium and at Sheerness.