IMPORTED GOODS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 78, 29 September 1938, Page 12

IMPORTED GOODS

EXCHANGE AND PRICE

BUSINESS PROBLEMS

The decline in exchange value of sterling in relation to the United States dollar (to which reference is made in another column) and the increasing tension in: European affairs are being watched with the closest attention by the heads of New Zealand indent houses. In some instances intimation has been received by cablegram of temporary suspension of quotations; in others, an increasing, volume of business on quotations ruling during the past week has been accepted. So far as concerns jute goods, such as cornsacks, wool-packs, hessians, and similar goods, a Wellington firm today received a cablegram from its principals in Calcutta advising that "pending the clearing of the European situation we are not quoting for any more fresh business." A cablegram received on Wednesday by the same firm gave quotations upon which business could be and was done'this week.

Some slight advances in prices of various imported lines have been reported during the week, and markets generally have been described as "hardening," but no sensational rises have taken place up to the present time, and no difficulty experienced in the acceptance of business, even for goods from Germany, at quotations ruling hitherto.

■ So far as imports from the United States and some others are concerned, the effect of the decline in the value of sterling and the current rates for marine insurance must add to the landed cost of such goods, but, to repeat, the prices quoted, so far, show no substantial increases.