£1,000,000 Papermill Scheme For Hokitika

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 April 1948, Page 2

£1,000,000 Papermill Scheme For Hokitika

The establishment at Hokitika of a £1,000,000 paper factory, employing about 240 men and producing from bush waste 7000 tons of newsprint and 3000 tons of sulphite wrappings annually, is the goal of a syndicate of Hokitika businessmen. The scheme, which was first investigated by overseas experts almost 20 years ago, has been revived since the end of the war and the syndicate’s application for a licence for the project was considered less than a fortnight ago by a tribunal set up by the Department of Industries and Commerce under the Industrial Efficiency Act, but no final decision has yet been reached.

When the plan for manufacturing paper from Westland wood pulp, together with other ingredients readily available in the district, was first investigated in the years just before 1930 by a Hokitika syndicate, samples of the’timber it was proposed to utilise were sent to experts in the United. States, England and Switzerland, while other experts from Canada and the United States visited the district to discuss the propositon. After the scheme had been investigated a factory was designed by a Swiss concern on the lines of a plant operating at Zurich, and in 1940 the Government was first approached to sanction the foundation of the newsprint industry in the Dominion. Because of the war the project had to be postponed. Whakatane Objection

When the syndicate’s claims for a. licence were considered by the Government trbiunal shortly before Easter, an objection was lodged by the Whakatane Paper Company, and after a full hearing the application was adjourned for six months to allow further information to be supplied by the syndicate. A capital of £1,000,000 will be required to launch the project, in the event of a licence being issued, but interest in the plant is not confined to New Zealand alone, English investors, it is reported, having indicated provisional support. The proposed site for the concern is just outside Hokitika, where two areas totalling 80 acres have been secured. It is proposed to build the factory in separate units, each selfcontained, so that the expansion of the industry can continue without interfering with the current production. The first unit, which is expected to be ready for production with a daily output of 25 to 30 tons of newsprint within three years after the issuing of a permit, provided the necessary equipment can be readily obtained, will employ 240 men. Many of these

men will be technicians who will have to be secured from overseas, and the syndicate has planned to construct 75 to 80 houses bordering its factory for these experts. Inquiries are already under way with a view to securing labour in New Zealand. The syndicate—the Westland Woodpulp and Paper Syndicate, which is a group of 10 prominent Hokitika businessmen —will, require no less than 2500 tons of machinery for its plant, and most of this will have to be imported from England. Wood Waste to be Used The proposed factory will manufacture paper from bush waste-—tree tops, branches from between three and eight inches thick, and slabs and dockings from mills. Most of this wood is now left to rot or burn _ in cut-over bush or is burnt at the mills. It is estimated that 30 years’ supply of this timber is already available for the paper mill. Besides the woodwaste, clay, lime and coal will be used in the manufacuring processes. Samples of newsprint and wrapping paper made from West Coast timber specimens in overseas mills show, it has been stated, that the type of paper that it is planned to produce is equal to that at present in use. Newsprint at present used in New Zealand is imported from Canada. It is stated that the pioneering of this industry in New Zealand at Hokitika would, besides relieving here an acute shortage that is now worldwide, enable Dominion newspapers to obtain newsprint stocks at cheaper rates. The initial daily output of 25 to 30 tons, however, would be far below the full New Zealand consumption.

Described by the district officer of the Employment and Labour Department, Mr J. C. Corbishley, as likely to be the biggest individual secondary industry on the West Coast, the factory would, when finally operating, sharply increase the population of Hokitika.