DIFFICULTIES OF TRADING STRESSED: COMPANY REVIEW

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 November 1949, Page 10

DIFFICULTIES OF TRADING STRESSED: COMPANY REVIEW

DUNEDIN, November 8 (P.A.) — Import control and the Price Tribunal had restricted healthy trading to an alarming degree and had helped to make the year just closed very difficult, said Mr J. M. Paterson, chairman of directors of the Drapery and General Importing Co., Ltd. (D.1.C.) at the annual meeting in Dunedin this afternoon. Staff difficulties seemed worse than ever and there appeared to be little hope of immediate improvement. “The Price Tribunal is steadily reducing the margin of profit; only the other day there was a blanket reduction of 2A per cent, on the mark-up allowed on almost all lines of goods in which we trade,” said Mr Paterson. “The reduction was based, as was more or less frankly admitted, not on the reasonableness of the existing rates but on the financial results shown by traders. “I need not enlarge on this practice. It is unfortunately already familiar.

“In the simplest way I can put it we have this year been able to buy less, which we have been made to sell at less profit, while paying more to sell it. Your directors can see little prospect of an early improvement or of a return to the peak years of 1947 and 1948. For these reasons shortages still persist in many lines that the company regards as bread and butter, chiefly men’s working clothing, hosiery, carpets and floor coverings, china and children’s wear.”