Copra

All South Seas Distribution Now Under Government Control

ALL supplies of copra and coconut oil available to the United Nations will be pooled and allocated to importing countries according to an agreed formula. This was announced in Canberra on July 6.

The Commonwealth Government will be responsible for the purchase and shipment of the quantities allocated to Australia and private interests will not be able to buy. Strict control of all copra and coconut oil will be exercised in Australia by the Director of Materials Supply, Department of Munitions.

No more licences to import copra to Australia will be issued, so as to prevent private copra operations competing with Governmental operations.

This simply means that all South Seas copra distribution is now Government controlled. The only copra now avail able in the South Seas, in any event, is that produced in Fiji, and the compara tively small quantities produced In Tonga, Samoa, and Cook Islands and the French Colonies of New Hebrides, New Caledonia and French Oceania. Plant ers sell direct to the Governments.

The French territories resisted the ori ginal pooling plan, but they now have joined the pooling arrangement an nounced by Canberra—they must, be cause no other market is open to them.

The big firms probably will handle the copra, as agents, under Grovernment contracts.

A new position may arise when the Japs are driven out of important copra producing countries, like New Guinea and the Solomons, and larger quantities of copra are available.

Rise Of 5/- Per Ton

Britain, at the end of May, agreed to pay the Fiji Copra Board an extra 5/per ton for Plantation quality copra.

This, it is expected, will affect from 8,000 to 10,000 tons per annum, and growers will benefit accordingly.

Fiji also is planning a third grade.

There will be Plantation grade (worth £lB per ton, now to be £lB/5/-), FMS grade (Fair Merchantable Sun-dried), (worth £l7) and a new grade called “Under Grade” (worth about £l6/15/-).