NEW ZEALAND HIDES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19903, 24 September 1926, Page 9

NEW ZEALAND HIDES.

EXPORTS TO AMERICA. AN INCREASING TRADE. (From Ode Own Coebespondeni.) WELLINGTON September 23. For many years it has been much easier to buy from, than to sell to, the United States. If New Zealand butter or lamb made much of a showing in that country it was generally hit on the head with a duty, but there is one item for which the United States seems to be an increasingly good customer, and that is hides and skins. The American Consul-General at Wellington (Mr W. L. Lowrie) furnishes a statement, with figures, from which it would seem thalt for the five years preceding the war Now Zealand’s average annual export of hides and skins to the United States was 4,276,0001 b but for the last five years it has been 16,492,0381b —an increase of 285 per cent.—and the preliminary figures for 1926—18,925.7341 b—exceed any previous yeai. Comparing the two periods in another way, it is shown that New Zealand’s share of the United States hide and skin imports has risen from 1 per cent, to nearly 4 per cent. Similarly, if the figures of sheep and lambskins are taken, the rise is from 7 per cent, to 22 per cent. It is just to weigh this increasing market for an important exportable product of the Dominion.