TRADE NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN JAPAN AND STERLING AREA

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 August 1949, Page 6

TRADE NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN JAPAN AND STERLING AREA

TOKIO, August 2.—No Japanese observers were present when sterling area representatives and officials of General MacArthur’s headquarters this morning began negotiations for a new trade agreement to cover the year from July, 1949, to June, 1950. New Zealand is represented at the talks by the head of its Tokio mission (Mi’ f?. Challis).

Under the 1948-49 trade agreement between the sterling area and Japan, the United Kingdom and its colonies Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa agreed to a minimum exchange of it 60,500,000 worth of goods for Iho year. Hong Kong and Pakistan remained outside the agreement.

The volume of trade exceeded the agreedminimum by about £9,000,000, and Japan finished the year with a favourable balance of about the same amount.

A spokesman for the sterling area said he hoped that the current conference would evolve means of redressing the unfavourable balance and increase the minimum volume of trade for the year 1949-50 to at least £75,000,000. Mr K. Chettur (India) said: “The only way out is for the Supreme Command to realise that Japan is in the sterling area, not the dollar area. The present deficit is the result of lop-sided buying. We have been buying freely from Japan, but they have not been buying freely from the sterling area.”

New Zealand imported from Japan last year goods worth £59,157. The principal items were £19,028 worth of rough-sawn oak timber, £20,877 worth of caustic soda, and fancy goods worth £5600. Exports from New Zealand to Japan were worth £46,559 and included £16,891 worth.of sheepskins, £16,275 worth of wool, and £ 13,342 worth of hides.