Copra Market
p. 64 · Read in the full issue
Combine Still Fixing Prices
From a Special Correspondent.
LONDON, October 10.
CONDITIONS have altered very little and the markets for tropical products are about the same. There has been a slight hardening of copra prices in Mar seilles, which may—or may not —indicate a change for the better. But I fear not.
Certain financial interests appear to think that rubber is settled for the better, and two rubber companies are reported to have had successful flotations. The latest flotation, Malacca Rubber Plantations, is said to have been heavily over-subscribed.
Yesterday I was talking with one of the leading sellers of Pacific Islands copra in London. I asked him what the copra market was like, and he said: “Firm. But our friends of Unilever are annoyed and refuse to buy. We just have to meet their wishes, as they are the only buyers in this market.” That, in a nutshell, is the posi tion, of the market in Britain.
There is a world-combination of copra buyers, supreme and unchallenged. The only possible answer to the combine would be a world combination of copra-pro ducers ; and that is an entirely hopeless
proposition.