BRITISH WOOL TRADE

Evening Star, Issue 25672, 21 December 1945, Page 6

BRITISH WOOL TRADE

EXPANSION OF EXPORT MARKET

QUANTITIES OF N.Z. TOPS RELEASED

(N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent:.)

(Rec. S a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 20. A strong deputation from the British wool textile industry lately urged Government departments to do everything possible to expedite the release of more forces personnel and war workers into British woollen mills in order that the output may be much increased to meet world demands. The industry needs practically 100,000 workers to restore its pre-war personnel, and with world wool accumulations awaiting liquidation and world markets hungry for wool goods it is regarded as vital that workers must return to the mills as quickly as possible. Everything possible is being done to step up Britain’s rate of wool consumption. The production of wool goods for the civilian trade is steadily increasing, and there are hopes of higher allocations for export shortly. Meanwhile there is growing anxiety in trade circles here to take the fullest possible advantage of export trade opportunities in wool and processed wool such as tops, for which there is great need on the Continent. Wool Control recently released for export further substantial quantities of cross-bred tops of 48’s, 46’s. and 44’s qualities—which means that the available total will be almost entirely composed of New Zealand wool—and these will be available to all countries with which Britain has permanent arrangements. This is only the second occasion sines the end of the war on which New Zealand tops have been made available for export, and since no Australian tops are yet available for export it would seem that cross-bred tops are the only types in which there is a stock 'margin at present which can be placed at the disposal of overseas buyers. The trade is anxious to see a rapid extension to export facilities in both wool and tops, and points out that, although the war in Europe has been ended for some months, Britain’s total exports of imported wool this year are less than one-third the pre-war normal. At the moment it seems that exports of wool and tops from Britain must be governed by the spot stock position in relation to priority needs at home, and there is evidence that the authorities are alive to the need to make the maximum possible supplies available to Continental Europe. To this end traders are hoping for an' early resumption of unrestricted commercial importation facilities into Britain ns the necessary preliminary, to extended export trade.