CHH Chilean moves hailed

Press, 23 July 1986, Page 38

CHH Chilean moves hailed

PA Wellington Moves by Carter Holt Harvey, Ltd, to acquire a half share of a big Chilean group have been hailed by Tauranga businessman, Mr Bob Owens. CHH will spend $307 million on a 50 per cent share in Los Andes Development and Investment Company, which is one of Chile's major industrial groups with interests in timber, wood pulp, petroleum and fishing. Mr Owens, who is well known for his campaign to expand trade between New Zealand and South America, said such a deal had to be in the long-term Interests of New Zealand.

Referring particularly to the Chilean group’s

ownership of more than 228,000 hectares of forests, he said the international timber industry was very much a case of southern hemisphere against the north today. "Far from this leading to a New Zealand firm competing with Chilean timber against our own markets, I believe it should lead to greater cooperation in future,” said Mr Owens. “The last thing either country needs right now is to become involved- in a price war with the other.” Mr Owens did not wish to comment on a suggestion that the Chilean partnership could be a signal that New Zealand’s own timber supplies were pricing themselves off the world market.