EASTERN TRADE

Southland Times, Issue 18931, 3 May 1923, Page 6

EASTERN TRADE

DOMINION’S OPPORTUNITY. (Per United Press Association). WELLINGTON, May 2. Mr C. J. Rumkin who recently arrived from Siberia and China, attended the Farmers’ Union meeting to-day and gave an address on the possibility of trade between New Zealand and China, Siberia and other Eastern countries. He denied the truth of statements that recently appeared in the New Zealand press to the effect that Siberian butter was going into the London market again. He expressed the opinion that Shanghai was the best port to which small trial shipments of tinned meat might be sent. In some parts of the East there would be, he thought, a good market for New Zealand butter and other produce. He emphasised the importance of samples being first sent to different suitable ports. At a meeting of the Dominion Executive of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union to-day a letter was received from the Registrar of Imports and Exports, Singapore, as to the possibilities of the sale of New Zealand produce at Singapore. Considerable trade, he said, was carried on between Australia and British Malay in frozen meat, hams and bacon, butter and cheese. There were no direct shipping facilities from New Zealand to the Straits Settlement and “wholesale prices were the same in New Zealand as in Australia and goods had to be shipped via Australia.” It was probable the extra freight would render business impossible. There was as far as he could ascertain, apparently sufficient cold storage accommodation on the premises of the Singapore Cold Storage Company, Ltd., for the requirements of the port for the next few years.