WONDERFUL PROGRESS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXII, Issue 4641, 18 May 1938, Page 2

WONDERFUL PROGRESS

A.M.P. SOCIETY'S DEVELOPMENT. The following is a precis of the speech of the New Zealand delegate, delivered at the 89th annual meeting of the Australian Mutual Provident Society, held in Sydney on Friday, May 6:— In my official capacity as the delegate of the New Zealand branch directorate, and in a personal sense also, I have much pleasure in rising to support the motion for the adoption of the society's 89th annual report and balance sheet.

The report which you have delivered, Mr. chairman, and the balance sheet which is before us, afford elequent testimony of the progress of this remarkable institution.

As regards the society's operations in New Zealand, I am happy in the position of being able to state that we have enjoyed a very successful year. New assurances totalling over six million pounds were placed on the branch books in the ordinary department —a record for the branch.

When I was visiting delegate at the society's annual meeting some five years ago, I reported ordinary department new business figures for the year then under review at two and a half millions only. Admittedly this was in the middle of the financial depression; but even so, the six millions odd that the branch achieved last year will be some indication of the expansion "that has been made in our new business production.

In common with the success achieved by the ordinary department, our industrial Organisation has also an excellent year to its credit, another year of record business having been registered in the shape of over one million pounds of new assurance. It is also pleasing for me to report that our total void business for the year in the two departments showed a decline on that for the previous year.

We have seen to-day that the society's total assets have now reached the formidable sum of over 112 million pounds. Of this amount between 19 and 20 million pounds are invested in New Zealand, mainly in Government securities, local body loans and in mortgages on farms and residential properties. You will be interested to learn that the New Zealand branch has recently acquired a block of land in Wellington adjoining its present premises. The phenomenal growth of our business has rendered the acquisition of further space essential.