SIGNS OF ACTIVITY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 299, 19 December 1933, Page 7

SIGNS OF ACTIVITY

TIMBER EXPORTING TRADE 1 Per Preso Association. J CHRISTCHURCH, Dec. 17. As a result of a visit to Australia, Mr. D. Reese, chairman of the West Coast Sawmills Association, says he i able to report to the sawmilling associations that a big market in Australia is open to them which, with proper care and attention, can be maintained against all foreign competition, and be made profitable both for sawmillers who export and timber merchants who impart on the other side of the Tasman. ‘ ‘ Recently Australia took the primage duty off rimu, as well as the sales tax, and thio gives our timber an increasingly advantageous position in competing with other imported timbers,” he said. Although almost the whole of the riinu exported to Australia went from Westport and Grey mouth, said Mr. Reese, thc development of Australian trade would have a very beneficial effect of sawmillers in thc North Island and Southland, for at the present moment there was undue pressure from the West Coast on Wellington and other North Island ports, as well as Dunedin. Already there wore signs of greater activity in the export trade.