Submissions invited on wheat marketing

Press, 9 August 1985, Page 3

Submissions invited on wheat marketing

Wellington reporter The Government has invited submissions on the marketing of wheat from 1987 to 1989, when the Wheat Board will be restricted to commercial trading only. The Wheat Board will receive submissions from interested parties and report to the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Caygill. Submissions should be with the board in Christchurch by October 31 this year. A report from the Wheat Board was expected by February 28, 1986, to allow an announcement to be made by the Government before the main planting for the 1987 harvest, Mr Caygill said yesterday. He recalled that last

October the Government had decided that from February 1, 1987, the Wheat Board should no longer trade in flour other than purely commercially. The board’s role would also be restricted to trading in wheat, both milling and non-milling, and it would continue to be the sole im-

porter of wheat until February 1, 1989, at which point its monopoly trading and importation rights would

cease. The board would be required to meet mills’ specifications for wheat including, if necessary, imported wheat. Mr Caygill said the board had been asked to act as a channel for interested parties to put forward ideas on the marketing of wheat be-

cause of its wide representation of interested groups and intimate knowledge of the industry. He said the Government was looking for an approach which provided for competition rather than regulation. Continued regulation of the wheat market beyond January 31, 1989, could not be assumed, he said.