British Firms Hope To Produce 200,000 Tractors

Wanganui Chronicle, 23 February 1949, Page 5

British Firms Hope To Produce 200,000 Tractors

LONDON, Feb. 22 (Rec. 6 pm).— A report on the coming year’s operations prepared by Pep (Organisation for Political and Economic Planning) for the British agricultural engineering industry, discloses that British tractor manufacturing firms hope to produce 200,000 machines this year, and that the total production of agricultural implements and equipment may reach £"0,000,000 in value — double the wartime peak production. Of the 200,000 tractors which will come off the British assembly lines, 40,000 approximately will be sold on the home market and the remainder will be exported With this reinforcement, British farmers will be using 300,000 tractors and will be able to claim the most highly mechanised farming industry in the world. The great problem confronting the I British agricultural engineering industry is whether, in face of increasing American competition, it can sell 160,000 tractors abroad in the next twelve months. The report considers that the prospects of doing this have been improved by the extent to which British farm implementmakers have opened up new markets since the end of the war.—(Special N.Z.P.A Correspondent).