PACIFIC TRADE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22356, 29 February 1936, Page 17

PACIFIC TRADE

Sir,—The opinion of Exportadore that Japan offers no prospects for New Zealand, dairy products and certain machinery because Japan is herself an exporter of butter and milk and her Government has embarked on a programme of developing dairying in Japan, is wrong. Inquiries have been made here regarding some New Zealand made pumps, and New Zealand was, and is, actually exporting dairy products to Japan. Further, many prominent merchants from. Japan have declared here that Japan is perfectly capable of buying considerable quantities of our butter, cheese and tinned milk. Dairying in Japan is concentrated in the Hokkaido district producing up to 5,000,0001b. of butter in a very good season and exporting some butter to China because the demand has been rising steadily. Japan, when I was there, with 16 per cent of arable land, certainly did not seem suitable for developing dairying on a large scale. Manchukuo, in fact, is her principal hope. Yet latest quotations in hand show that Manchukuo butter is retailed in Shanghai at Is 3d per lb., when Australian and New Zealand Retails at 2s 4d per lb. We are talking abuut planned external trade. It is not optimism, but simply a considered opinion, based on facts, to say that in rearranging Pacific trade we must begin with Japan, and must determine the conditions under which our dairy product shall enter, lbe taste for European food is developing at a great rate in Japan. Alex. S. Tetzner.