Ngreased P-Ng Copra Yield
p. 77 · Read in the full issue
Last Year
A LTHOUGH still below pre-war figures, total exports of copra from Papua- New Guinea have increased rapidly n the last three years.
Figures released by the Production Control Board recently give exports for he year ending December 31, 1950, as >B,OOO tons, compared with 61,000 tons in L 949, and 48,000 tons in 1948. Stimulated )y high prices, recovery of copra produc tion has been quicker than anticipated.
The maximum exported from the com bined territories before the war was 87,000 tons —the bulk of it coming from the
Mandated Territory.
It is even more interesting to compare the average price of New Guinea copra for the years between the wars with to day’s fixed PCB price of £4B/10/oer ton (it will go up another £5 in March). In the 20’s the price fluctuated between £l5 and £22. By 1933-34 it had dropped to the record low of £4/11/- per ton. From this point it climbed slowly
until it was, in 1939, selling in London at about £l2 sterling. In the early years of the war, Pacific copra generally relapsed into the doldrums owing to lack of shipping to lift it, but again became valuable when the Japs over-ran most ol the copra producing areas of Indonesia, Philippines and South Pacific.
In the post-war years the copra price, with most other primary products prices, has gone spiralling ever-upwards.
Mr. and Mrs. Alan Champion, of Higaturu, Papua, where Mr. Champion is ADO, are two of the few residents of that area who are still alive. Their home is
now buried under about 10 feet of volcanic ash. The couple arrived in Brisbane on three months’ leave on January 24. Before he left Higaturu Mr.
Champion had been ill from pleurisy. He wanted to stay at the station until it was time for them to leave for South, but Mrs. Champion insisted that he have a few days rest in Moresby first. If they had stayed at Higaturu they, too, would probably have become volcano victims.
The marriage took place in Sydney on January 24 of Miss Judith Nichol to Mr.
Bruce McLeod, of Radio Station V2J, Honiara, BSI.