Copra?

New Price For P-Ng

IT was reported in Sydney, as this journal went to press, that the rates to be paid to New Guinea planters for copra during the current year were under consideration in Canberra.

It was expected that, while there would be no change in the British contract price, the price paid by the Production Control Board (or whatever instrument ality succeeded it) to the planters would It is believed that the Minister (Mr.

Spender) when recently in Port Moresby, reached an agreement with the PCB and that this is now likely to be implemented from Canberra at an early dale.

The main trouble facing Canberra is the fact that about half the production of copra in Papua-New Guinea is now consumed in Australia. The Government is quite agreeable that NG planters should get the highest possible price—but it is not anxious to raise the price now being paid by Australian crushers.

Position In Ceylon

IT was reported from Colombo on March 21 that Ceylon’s Minister of Com merce is considering a United States offer to buy Ceylon’s entire exportable surplus of coconut oil up to June 30, 1951.

Negotiations for a new copra and coco nut oil contract between the British Food Ministry and the Ceylon Government failed last December.

Ceylon’s Minister of Commerce said on March 20 that the American offer vin dicated his policy of not entering into the proposed new Copra Contract with Britain (£4B 10 - per ton, during 1950).