SUGAR INDUSTRY PROFITS

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 3 May 1934, Page 5

SUGAR INDUSTRY PROFITS

DIVIDEND AND BONUS MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS [ UiJiTt’d Press Association—By Electric TeiegrapD Copyright.} SYDNEY, May 2. Accounts of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited for the halfyear ended March 31 disclose net profits from factories and investments of £495,389, from which a dividend of £1 and a bonus of os a share is being paid, absorbing £365,625 and leaving £129,764 to be added to a profit and loss account of £370,783 on September 30, 1933, making. the total £500,547 from which the board is placing to the reserve fund £IOO,OOO. The profit for the corresponding half-year of 1933 was £422,122. The chairman, iMr E. E. Knox, moving the adoption of the report at a meeting of shareholders to-day said the abnormally large surplus of 317,847 tons of sugar exported was due to favourable growing conditions. Weather in Fiji had been moderately favourable for the crop to be harvested, but in Queensland and New South Wales the crops wore retarded through excessive rain. The prospects for 1935 were generally favourable both in Australia, and Fiji.

The output of raw sugar in Queensland and New South Wales in 1933 exceeded the forecast of last November, the total production being 666,552 tons. The aveage tonnage of cane per acre was 22.4 tons, compared with 20.5 tons for the past ten years. There had been heavier planting than usual on the northern rivers of New " South Wales, partly owing to the setback to the dairying industry and partly to the introduction of disease resisting cane. The chairman added that the general manager, Mr iGoidfinc-h, had gone to fjondon, where important matters were under consideration affecting the sugarproducing countries. The report was adopted. Dr. E. W. Fairfax was elected a director.