Australia To Have 2 Rayon Factories

Northern Advocate, 3 November 1949, Page 8

Australia To Have 2 Rayon Factories

SYDNEY, Wed. (noon).—Courtaulds, Ltd;, of England, has announced that it intends to form a company with a nominal capital of £10,000,000 to build two rayon factories in Australia. One factory will be at Tomago, near Newcastle, and the site of the other is yet to be announced. The strong possibility is that it will be nearby. Most of the new company’s share capital will be raised in Australia. The company will build factories for production both of viscose rayon yarn for tyres and other industrial purposes, and acetate rayon yarn for textiles.

The tyre yarn factory will, be built at Tomago where prolonged negotiations concerning access and water rights have been concluded satisfactorily. HIGH PRIORITY. A spokesman for the company said the Commonwealth Government regarded the production of rayon tyre yarn a high priority industry for strategic reasons, and as a means of saving dollars. The project was sponsored by Courtaulds and leading Australian financial and industrial interests, including the Australian Mutual Provident Society and Colonial Sugar Refining Co., Ltd, The New South Wales Premier 1 (Mr McGirr) said that the Government would build a railway bridge over the Hunter River, near Hexham, and that a road bridge was in course of erection. 5

The State Minister of Housing (Mr C. Evatt) would make a survey of housing needs of families attracted to the Newcastle district by the project.