TRADE WITH SWEDEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 70, 24 March 1938, Page 12

TRADE WITH SWEDEN

PRIMARY PRODUCTS

INDIRECT IMPORTS

Taken on official statistics, trade be» tween Australia and New Zealand with Sweden shows a balance in favour of the last-named country. But, according to Mr. G. M. Lundgren, secretary to the Swedish Chamber of Commerce for Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands, trade is more evenly balanced than the returns show. The fact is (he states) that Swedish returns, showing direct and indirect imports or Australian and New Zealand products, in the form of semi-manufactured and manufactured goods, give a different aspect of the trade. Mr. Lundgren, in the Journal of the Swedish Australian and New Zealand Chamber of Commerce, shows that by the method now adopted in recording Swedish trade statistics, a fair estimate can be made of the magnitude of imports into Sweden of Australian and New Zealand goods. Only a fair estimate, however, because of the nature of the trade, i.e., the exchange of manufactured Swedish goods for raw products and foodstuffs from Australia and New Zealand. These countries export large quantities of wool to Great Britain to be made into wool tops or combed wool. Sweden imports very large quantities of this wool from Great Britain, as nearly 90 per cent, of her total imports of combed wool comes from that country; and because the wool has been combed in Great Britain, though it may be of Australian or New Zealand origin, it is recorded in the import statistics as a product of Great Britain. It may be rioted that the Swedish imports of combed wool from Great Britain nearly equals total exports of greasy and scoured wool from Australia and New Zealand. The same applies to some other products of Australia and New Zealand. If account were taken of semi-manufactured and manufactured goods of which the raw materials originated in Australia Ciid New Zealand, the Swedish imports from those countries would have exceeded exports to them from Sweden. A strong plea is made for direct trade between Australia and New Zealand.