HOME EXPORT TRADE

Grey River Argus, 8 November 1938, Page 9

HOME EXPORT TRADE

Dominion Market NO DOMINUTION. Reports received from correspondents in the big textile nmrkets.of the world, on tne prospects for trade during the next twelve months, are on the whole discouraging to. all save the very enterprising and the very optimistic. The keenness of- doiftpetition is still a dominant factor--m a majority of markets, and with it go the problems of trade agreements, tariffs, quotas, exchange restrictions, and the like. The report on prospects for the Indian market, for instance, as one might have guessed is one of almost unrelieved gloom. In the South African market tdo, pressure on the British Government 'is needed to sure better terms for British imports. The capacity of New Zealand to continue buying British goods has shown no diminution, in spite of what might have been prophesied. Indeed, there have been criticisms of the Dominion’s greater _ volume of imports, chiefly from Britain, because it has helped to lower her credit balances in London, though not seriously.* “The sound economic condition of the Dominion,” says a commercial journal, “is evidenced in the exceptional volume of her exports,-which, at the end of the last financial year, were a record for any similar period. The policy of the country is ' that prosperity shall be shaded as much as possible among the people, and the raising of the wages minimum has led to greater circulation of money, which has undoubtedly benefited the retailers of household and personal goods and caused a greater demand on British manufacturing houses; '

FOREIGN COMPETITION. “Except for a fall in- the price of wool, there is ,no indication of a diminution of ekport trade, and consequently in Niw Zealand’s power to purchase. But sellers of British goods should the keenness of foreign endeavour to obtain orders in a country with >] so high a purchasing power per head as New Zealand-— ,the highest in the world —and make the most of/their opportunities, not being misled by the comparative smallness qf the Dominion’s population; nr, fee the most also .of the pro-Britisa sentiment of the people and the nighly-favourable British tariff preference,” In the British textile trade conwith New Zealand there is beto be keenness: Manchester manufacturers are strongly representemjn the textile goods sold in the Dominion. In some of the lines there is compelution from Japan, especially in apparel''■and piece goods, but not to any serious extent. Fashions in\N©sy Zealand largely follow those in able how quickly fashions may be seen in New, Zealand cities. To some extent American fashions have their Influence especially in Aucklandl )E .'Tt seems, however, that the demand will be for the better British, ’clothes, piece-dyed and near-fancy weaves, and for novelty types of clothes which are being sold in the British market. At one time Paris fashions greatly influenced the New Zealand textile market, but it is not so now. ,