TRADE WITH MALAYA

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 12, 14 July 1931, Page 10

TRADE WITH MALAYA

ITS POTENTIALITIES COMMISSIONER IN SINGAPORE "Evening Pos;," 14th July. Taking advantage of a flotnrian invitation, Mr. L.- J. Schmitt, New Zealand Trade Commissioner, addressed a large gathering of interested listeners at Raffles Hotel, Singapore, on 17th 'June. His remarks were warmly applauded, and they occupied three columns of the "Free Press." They were fairly general in character, dealing with the history of New Zealand and its physical characteristics, its social structure and natural resources. But he stressed the importance of increasing the trade between all Malaya and this Dominion. He intended, he said, to give addresses on New Zealand at Pinang and Kuala Lumpur. The principal imports of Malayan products by New Zealand, he said, were tapioca, canned pineapples, and spices. The principal imports by the Straits Settlement and the Malay States were New Zealand butter, dried milk powder, and honey. There was room for considerable expansion of the trade between these two parts of the British Empire to their mutual advantage, For the past three years the trade between them in sterling was as follows: — 192 R. 1021. IMO. '.'■•. '£ £ C , Exports from Malaya . . to New Zealand .. T6.13T 123,57 a S3.UO Imports by Malaya from New Zealand . 32,220 25,077 20,308 Trade for the three years in review amounted to exports to New Zealand, £282,822; imports by-Malaya from New Zealand, £77,605; balance of trade in favour of Malaya,-£205,217. NEW ZEALAND EXPORTS. "The Government of the Dominion of. New Zealand hopes to send to you a lot wore of its,high-grade products, which have captured the markets in other parts of the world," said Mr. Schmitt, "mainly on account of good quality, backed up by the most careful, strict, compulsory inspectidn before shipment by specially qualified experts. . "You will be interested to know that the New Zealand exports of butter and cheese have increased in twenty years from 40,000 tons to 180,000 tons. Frozen meats, mainly lamb, have increased in the same period from 120,000 tons to 170,000 tons. The increase in the quantities of fresh apples exported has been phenomenal, and in five years the exports have increased from 140,000 bushel cases to over one million bushel cases. PRESERVED MILK. "The United Kingdom takes from New Zealand more than twelve million pounds weight of our preserved milk in various forms, and it is difficult to understand why 100,0001b only, valued at approximately two thousand (£2ooo)''sterling is the sum of the imports by the Malay States of New Zealand preserved milk, the total import of this commodity to the Malay Peninsula being in the vicinity of two million sterling per year. "Our small Dominion is one of the largest buyers of your preserved pineapples, and the value of these alone exceeds the value of all that you buy from New Zealand by 80,000 dollars per year. New Zealand is the largest buyer of Empire products per capita- in the world, and the policy of our Dominion is to encourage interEmpire trade in every possible way. The more we can buy from the Malay States the better we like it, and the more you buy, from us better still do we like that."