Products Of The South Seas

Copra Prices Remain at Low Level

THE copra market remains in a de pressed condition and, at present, there are no signs of a revival in prices.

The best that can be said of the market at the moment is that it ap pears to have reached the bottom. The long, steady decline that extended over several months up to the end of last August seems to have been arrested.

The price for several weeks has been jumping up and down, as shown in the accompanying columns, with a dif ference sometimes of as much as 20/per ton on the weekly comparison; but the average price over the last few weeks has not altered very much.

The large over-production of copra, combined with the enormous accumu lated stocks of palm oil, whale oil, pea nut oil and soya bean oil, makes it extremely difficult to judge the future.

It is certain that the law of supply and demand will operate in this market, as in any other market, and that the

price ultimately will recover to a level that will permit of the profitable oper ation of plantations. But it is a fact that every industry producing this class of oil or oil-bearing substances is faced with great over-production, and that all the regular channels of consumption are so overwhelmed with the supplies offering that they are able to offer almost any price they like.

Therefore, any marked recovery of the market is improbable. There must be a gradual far-reaching adjustment of all the industries concerned to the outstanding fact that their production is largely in excess of consumption.

But there should be an early recovery from the £14/10/- and £15 quotations, which are ruinous.

The prospects of two oil-producing industries, which now menace copra— namely, the oil palm industry and the whaling industry—are discussed else where in this issue.