Tahiti’S Trade.

Details for 1932.

From Our Own Correspondent.

PAPEETE. March 24.

THE 1932 commercial statistics for the French establishments in Oceania, just published with commendable promptitude in the Official Journal of the Colony, reveal a still further de crease in the value of both imports and exports as compared with the year 1931 (the details of which appeared in the January issue of the P.I.M.) and there fore constitute a new low record.

The combined imports and exports to talled in 1932 the sum of 45,729,000 francs as against 50,583,000 francs for 1931.

The re-export and transit business, which falls within a different category, totalled 31,455,000 francs, representing an increase over 1931 of 16,103,000 francs: this consists chiefly of alcoholic liquors received from France, England and Canada, destined for the coast of Mexico.

The principal imports came from U.S.A. (35.61 per cent.), France (27.85 per cent.), Australia (11.41 per cent.), China (10.59 per cent.), and New Zea land (9.58 per cent.); the total amount ing to 24,718,000 francs, as compared with 26,187,000 francs for 1931.

Exports totalled 21,011,000 francs which represents a decrease on the 1931 figures of 3,385,000 francs; of these France took 40.28 per cent., as compared with 31.76 per cent, in 1931. The output of phosphate rock (120,649 tons in 1932) showed an increase over 1931 of a little over 10,000 tons; as usual more than half of this went to New Zealand and Australia and the balance to Japan and other countries. Copra exports increased by 2237 tons over 1931, giving a total for the year under review of 19,043 tons, the highest so far recorded, and an increase on the 1923 returns of nearly 80 per cent.

In his concluding remarks, M. Marhic, the chief of Customs, notes with satis faction France’s increased share in the total trade of the Colony, which has risen from 22.08 per cent, in 1931 to 33.56 per cent, in 1932, while, in regard to exports, the mother country has attained the head of the list, having received nearly 40 per cent, of the total. M. Marhic also expresses the belief that the application of the new import tariff, now under con sideration, will enable France to arrive at the same satisfactory position in the matter of imports.