JAPANESE VISITORS

Taranaki Daily News, 3 October 1929, Page 13

JAPANESE VISITORS

STUDYING TRADE PROSPECTS. JOURNALIST’S NOVEL MISSION. A trip with the object of fostering trade between Japan and New Zealand is being made by Mr. T., Yabe, staff correspondent of the Osaka Asahi, one of the large Japanese newspapers, and Mr. K. Honda, a Japanese Government poultry expert, who arrived at Auckland from Sydney by the Ulimaroa on Monday (says the local Herald). They expect to stay several weeks in New Zealand. Mr. Yabe’s mission is in some respects unique. His paper recently completed 50 years of publication, and in recognition of this seven members of the staff were sent on trips'abroad to countries which provide prospective markets foi Japanese goods. Mr. Yabe was commissioned to visit Australia and New Zealand, and he has already spent a month in the Commonwealth. He is enjoying his trip immensely, and is sending regular articles to his paper on his investigations into trade possibilities. “Japan is near enough to New Zealand fo<r a great expansion in trade,” Mr. Yabe said. “Our manufacturers are now producing a number of-goods that would be marketable in New Zealand, but we realise that trade cannot be really successful .unless it is carried out on a reciprocal basis. While I am in New Zealand I want to form conclusions as to the goods we could import from your country.” Mr. Honda’s visit arises out of an effort to extend poultry farming in Japan. He comes from the Kumamoto Government Poultry Farm, and will make investigations into the methods adopted by poultry farmers in the Dominion. Mr. Honda said that Japan was making efforts to build up its poultry trade, and it had been recognised that the latest developments in countries which carried out an egg export trade would have to be followed. He bought a large number of birds in Australia, and they were immediately despatched to Japan.