MEAT FOR JAPAN

Manawatu Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 4705, 30 September 1936, Page 1

MEAT FOR JAPAN

A GROWING MARKET

With a.' growing tendency among the .Japanese to eat more meat, New Zealand is exploiting what seems likely to be a good outlet for one of her primary products, says the Christchurch Press. Not only has a meat trade grown, however, for the Japanese consumption of New Zealand wool has increased by almost 250 per cent, in 12 months. On the other hand, imports from the East have increased, but only slightly comparpd with the growth of export’s. Although no figures were available for comparative purposes, Kinsey and Co., the .Christchurch agents for the Osaka Shosen Kaisha, said that since Lyttelton was included in the direct route of the company’s ships in May last a large. quantity of' meat, mostly frozen beef, had been sent to Japan. In the first five months of the new servce the loadings were very satisfactory, and even bigger shipments are to be made in the next three months. The beef is all frozen, as the ships are not fitted for the carriage of chilled meat. Not are they fitted fully for frozen cargo, but the new vessels of the line, the Canberra. Maru and the Tokyo Maru, have greater refrigerated capacity than have the older ships. These two vessels can each carry 370 tons of frozen cargo and, as the trade -warrants it, this capacity will-be increased, according to the present intentions of the company. > “Australia has almost a monopoly of the daily produce trade with Japan,” it was stated, “but with flie present tariff troubles between the two countries there is a chance that we might get some of that.” Any quantities which had been sent in recent months had been very small and purely experimental.

New Zealand’s greatest export to Japan is avool, and the quantity shipped last season showed a great increase on the amount for the previous season. The number of bales shipped to Japan in the 1934-35 season was 20,000, and the number last season was 09,000. For the same seasons the numbers of bales shipped to the United Kingdom were 222,000 and 270,000 respectively. Next season, it was stated, Japan hoped to take 80,000 bales from the Dominion, hut it was thought that this total might he reduced slightly, as Japan would probably have to seek her finer wools in Australia, in spite of the present difficulties.

An exceptionally interesting cargo was carried by the Canberra Maru, the last vessel of the line to discharge at Lyttelton, which arrived on September 2. The greater part of her manifest comprised rayons and silks, which, Japan has been sending to New Zealand for some years, hut there was at least one other item which is not so common. in imports from the East. This is the inclusion in the cargo of 42 eases of window glass. For some years imports from Japan have included quantities of glassware but the present shipment is part of the product of an almost 'entirely new industry. The Japanese Year Book for 1936 shows that general glassware has been made in Manehukuo for several years, but the manufacture of sheet glass began on a very small scale last year.