OPENING IN SOUTH AMERICA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26045, 8 January 1946, Page 6

OPENING IN SOUTH AMERICA

SUBSTANTIAL MARKET POSSIBLE

The possibility of finding a substantial market for New Zealand butter and cheese in Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and the Panama Canal Zone is suggested by Major A. Reid-Kellett, of Te Aroha, who has been abroad for many years. He comments on the tact that whereas the latest trade returns show that New Zealand imported £1,000,000 worth of goods from Peru, our exports to Peru were nil. About 1930, says Major Reid-Kellett, he brought to the notice of representatives of the New Zealand Dairy Board in London the fact that very little butter and cheese was produced in Peru. Prices at the time were the equivalent of about 2s 6d a pound for butter and 2s a pound for cheese. He had suggested then that a trade investigation should be made, with a view to opening up a market for New Zealand produce in Chile, Peru, Ecuador. Colombia and the Panama Canal Zone. But apparently nothing was done. “There is a market there,” states Major Reid-Kellett. “If we are to buy £1,000,000 worth of products from Peru, it is only fair that she should take something from us. The standard of living there of nearly all except the few rich is low compared with many countries. This is even more in evidence to-day in Peru and the north of Chile. In Peru everyone is busy growing sugar and cotton, and in the production of oil. In Chile, it is nitrates. There is no time nor inclination to worry about foodstuffs for the working people, except the stuff that is massproduced, so to speak—beans, maize and potatoes. Butter and cheese and meat do not often appear on the workers’ tables on the Pacific coast. In fact, millions do not know the taste of these commodities. “An American observer who has recently completed a tour of South America, has told me that he was shocked at the low standard of living of the workers, side by side with evidence of luxury and wealth. All the countries mentioned are wealthy. They have benefited enormously through the war, and have funds in abundance. Just after the previous war the imports I noticed as being most in evidence, and right up in the interior, too, were French wines and expensive tinned foods. These were not for the ordinary worker, but, for the middlemen who had done well out of rubber and other badly-needed war materials. “Here is a chance for New Zealand to open up a prosperous market of limited extent among some 20,000,000 people. The opportunity should not be missed, but it should be tackled on a business basis, with business representatives to look the ground over and get down to essentials. There is a market for butter, cheese, tinned and in bulk, lard- and kindred primary products. I have not mentioned a market for meat. Owing to faulty communications and lack of refrigerated space up and down the coast this would require further investigation, but for the other goods there would be a free flow. In all the countries mentioned there are national firms of high repute ready to do business.”