GERMAN ATTACK

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 6

GERMAN ATTACK

ON THE INDIAN MARKET

"DETERMINED AND SUBTLE"

The Senior Trade Commissioner in India, Sir Thomas Ainscough, gives some striking facts about Japanese and German competition in India in a survey on the import trade of India of the last nine months of 1934, issued by the Department of Overseas Trade, states the "Manchester Guardian." He says:— "The outstanding features of the period under review have been a further advance in Japanese competition in a steadily-widening range of goods, the rapid recovery of the United States, and more insistent German competition. The Japanese not only added Rs. 50 lacs to their total shipments of cotton'piece goods, which are now subject to quota, but greatly increased her shipments of artificial silk yarns and piece goods, and cotton yarns, which are not so restricted. She now supplies over. 50 per cent, of India's takings of woollen piece goods, while the imports of Japanese apparel, haberdashery, and millinery, glassware, and the whole range of bazaar items have increased steadily. "The United States of America is rapidly regaining her position in the import trade, notably in motor-cars and trucks, machinery, hardware, instruments, and apparatus. "Arrivals from Germany increased by nearly Rs. 1 crore, but the percentage remained the same. German exporters of machinery are making a determined attack on this market, and are quoting prices so far below those ot their competitors that it is doubtful whether they bear a close relation to costs of production. German exporters are bringing steady pressure to bear, on the large firms of exporters of Indian produce &o ensure that additional imports by Germany of Indian produce shall only be made against corresponding exports to India of German machinery, (Stc. "This attempt to introduce barter trade is a most subtle form of attack on the United Kingdom position in the Indian market, which is deserving of the most careful attention on the part of United Kingdom export interests. The German exports to India during the period amounted to Rs. 7J crores, and her takings of Indian produce were only Rs. 43 crores, showing most favourable balance of trade in favour of Germany. . . ■ "Similarly, in the case of the .United Kingdom-German trade, the balance of exchange is heavily in favour of Germany. It should, therefore, not be difficult either for the* United Kingdom or India to withstand this form of pressure, particularly in view of *• fact that the United Kingdom now absorbs one-third of India's exports." JAPAN'S INROADS. The report notes that imports of Japanese woollen piece goods have risen from 1,962,127 yards to 6,332,792 yards, while the United Kingdom's share has fallen from 2,815,867 yards to 1,786,430 yards, Italy's from 2,110,564 yards to 342,848 yards, and France's from 2,684,397 yards to 485,919 yards. "The sudden entry of the Japanese into this trade until they now control more than 50 per cent, of it (continues the report) has been one of the remarkable features of the last three years. A Tariff Board inquiry into the need for protection of the Indian woollen industry is now being held. The preferential margin of 10 per cent, is quite inadequate to bridge the gulf between the price levels of the United Kingdom and the Continent and, that of Japan."-~>. ; f ; ■ -.■■'■ t '/"":. . :