TRADE WITH JAPAN

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 49, 27 February 1934, Page 11

TRADE WITH JAPAN

CHANCE FOR DAIRY PRODUCE

"OPPORTUNiTY BEING

MISSED"

(By Telegraph) .- . ■ ; (Speolal to the "Eveninfl > Post.") ' NEW PLYMOUTH, This Day. ■ Mr. Kawamura, manager for Australia and New Zealand: of a Japanese firm, who is interested in the marketing of casein, is at present visiting tho Taranaki district. Eegarding the opening of a market in Japan for New Zealand produce, he said Japan was interested in butter and cheese today as never before. Both commodities were coming into Japan in increasing quantities. The cheese came from .Europe mostly, and the butter from Australia" and the Bast. Japan, herself, produced butter,' but only a limited quantity. ' ■ While it was-true, said Mr. Kawamura, that in older days the people of Japan had no taste ,for ■■ butter,, tho taste was in existence now, and growing rapidljv Mr. Kawamura thought New Zealand had been remiss in days gone by in not investigating the possibility of finding a market for her products in the East. He instanced the example of Brazil, which twenty years ago introduced coffee drinking .to Japan. At that time tho Japanese were not coffee drinkers, but in order to create a demand Brazil opened coffee shops in ; the towns, particularly the university towns, where the' public could buy large cups of coffee for the equivalent of lid, compared'with the charge of 2d for v cup.pf tea. The result was that there soon arose a demand for coffee. That demand had been increasing steadily ever since. He could see no reason why the same should not apply' to butter and cheese. Butter was now in demand by the upper and middle classes of Japan, and cheese as an article''of food "was also coming into favour. Mr. Kawamura thought New Zealand was missing a valuable opportunity in not pushing the sale of her produce in Japan. That country was already buying wool from the Dominion and would be prepared to buy butter, and cheese as well so long as New Zealand was prepared to reciprocate by buying the products of Japan. Japanese exporters were always* "ready to meet the market in the matter of prices, and to make articles to suit Dominion requirements. ■ There /was every good reason why trade between New Zealand and Japan should be substantial an\l "ever-increasing. :. • i