Industries

Survey Of Pacific Shefl

Probable Effect of (a) Plastics and (b) the Returning Japanese

By .J. P. Short All

February and March, 1952, the PIM reviewed the Pacific shell industry, and indicated some of factors which governed the pro tion and price levels of this nable dollar-earner. Here is a unary of what happened since n in the trochus and MOP )ther-of-pearl) industries, ome trochus producers in the stern Pacific islands have been jping their produce to overseas ers, and have obtained prices in gss of £A2OO per ton f.o.b. dur the past year—though the iority of Sydney agents, (who in past have sold the greater part :he total production on a colli sion basis) have remained—at it publicly—very pessimistic, aul Rie, a leading New York er, when recently asked about quality of trochus coming from Western Pacific, made criticism r against the Cairns shippers, se people, he said, have done industry a very poor service by grading the quality and the shell rtments. He made no reference my excessively bad shell from Islands. 1 general, however, we might 2 expected, from the prevailing ney atmosphere of gloom re ling Pacific trochus, that the seas market had remained dull, even declined during the past years. So it is interesting to i, from the published figures of US Department of Commerce, whereas the average price per id of trochus from all sources, irted into US in 1950, was about cents, by 1952 it had risen to ly 21 cents. In 1950, Australia ond on the list as regards itity) shipped 492 tons of bus and received 12 cents per id. But in 1952, now topping list, Australia shipped 1,424 and received an average 25 1 s per pound—more than double 1950 price. hat this price might have been 11 shell had been well graded interesting to speculate. Highest is paid in America in the two s mentioned were 14.3 cents be Philippines in 1950, and 311 s to Malaya in 1952. icific Islands shell from British ces in 1950 was 97 tons at Hi s. In 1952, it rose to 149 tons 9 h cents. le 1952 US figures list “British Guinea” shell under a heading :s own—22l tons was imported, averaged 22.6 cents per pound.

rpHESE quantities, it is em- JL phasteed, do not necessarily represent total exports from the areas mentioned. They are the tonnages actually imported into the States. Some trochus, we know, went to Continental destinations.

But the prices here given do give

an excellent indication of ruling world prices and of price trends in the past two years.

If the French Western Pacific Ter ritories were producing any quantity of trochus in 1950, little of it was finding its way to America. But by 1952 it is clear that an excellent

grade of shell was being produced! there, as the 34 tons shipped to the) US averaged 29.4 cents per pound. 3 This price—30 per cent, better thani New Guinea—may be accounted for,| at least partly, by a better natural] type of shell from the New Cale-j donia-New Hebrides waters, ini addition to better grading.

By a coincidence, the multiplica-i tion by 10 of the above price in] cents per pound gives the price in £A per long ton —from which we see that the average f.o.b. price* paid in 1952 to New Guinea] shippers or their agents, was £A226 per long ton—and to shippers from: the French Territories, £A294.

Other South West Pacific British! islands—Fiji, the Solomons, and possibly some of the other WPHC areas, together shipped 149 tons, and were paid an average of 19.5 cents (£AI9S). Obviously some shippers received well above these average figures, which certainly in-| dicate that the trochus market] was considerably brighter than some? reports from Sydney would suggest!

IN general, Paul Rie, of New York, had this to say on current] trends: As events have developed] the glut of trochus that existed in early 1952 has gradually been digested, mostly by Japan and Europe. USA has also absorbed the inflated inventory of trochus re sulting from the 1951 abuses, which we discussed last year; but, at the same time, has become more servative in its purchases of this, type of shell, because the Japanese are able to outbid USA, and then to sell the finished buttons in the USA, duty paid, at lower prices than can be met by American manu facturers.

Faced with this situation (Mr. Rie points out), a good many American manufacturers are currently buying trochus buttons from Japan rather than face the grief and strain of importing shell of unknown quality, with an unknown percentage of loss in production. Buying the finished buttons, they know exactly what they are paying for.

This trend is not necessarily a bad one for the Pacific producers, l though it must affect dollar earn ings—unless the Japanese are forced to pay in dollars.

CONTRARY to earlier expecta tions, the Japanese have not yet started to fish much shell themselves. Clearly, they have been restrained by some behind-the scenes influences, as with their MOP planned activities.

Some months, now, a modern, well-equipped Japanese pearling fleet of 25 large diving tenders and a mother-ship has been standing by in Japan, ready to sail South to the shell-beds outside, but close to the territorial waters of the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea and Australia,

n April 13, a secret conference ,lly got under way in Canberra veen Australia and Japanese srnment representatives to dis -5 attitudes and implications. »ending on decisions reached, an will buy less or more shell n foreign sources. If she fishes own shell, she will apparently lire to buy less, and the effect ild be depressing to Islands )pers. n event of outstanding interest this regard is the opening of a hus processing factory at Levuka, —first enterprise of its kind in South Pacific —which will be able of handling at least the re Fiji trochus output, if the i’s aspirations are realised. An cle on this factory, which will i out buttons, medical lines, netic powder, manures and Itry grit, will appear in PIM at early date. the Southeast Pacific, where the interest is in MOP shell, little or no trochus is produced, market has also tended to im re since our last survey, ml Rie considers that if Japan nters the MOP production field, effect will be good for all con led. Australia’s low output of te shell has embarrassed the on manufacturers who handled ; particular product and find

themselves in short supply, and unable to meet their button orders.

This has the effect of giving plastics a footing in the well-established shell-button market. Preventing such a tendency, by the purchase of shell from whatever source, is a long-term safeguard to the

Australian shell export market, Australia’s low output might other wise force the button-makers to turn to plastics permanently, , . ... , „ , riIHE output of white shell has X almost no effect on the French Oceania-Cook Islands black-lip

market, Paul Rie stresses, as the two products are used for entirely dif ferent markets. However, the out put of French Oceania (Taumotu) shell does effect the price of Cook Islands shell, as the Tuamotu shell is superior and, when available, is likely to be given some preference over the Manihiki product.

Thus Paul Rie explains the ris ing tendency of Manihiki shell over the past year or so as having been mainly due to a shortage of Tuamotu shell in late 1951, and last year.

The Tuamotu, Rie says, is now pro ducing at a better rate and he feels that the Manihiki prices will not go higher, and may even drop.

Nevertheless, the Manihiki price is good, and the earnings from this lagoon mean a great deal to the Cook Islands. High hopes are held out for a successful development of £he Suwarrow lagoon, which may be as rich as Manihiki.

Mr, D. C. Brown, shell trader, has recently received permission to do some exploratory diving in this lagoon. Unfortunately, the coco nuts of this island are infested heavily with a termite which seems to defy eradication. Otherwise, a good many people might perman ently settle there, and produce copra as well as shell—that is, assuming the lagoon proves fruitful, and the shark menace is not what tradition has painted it to be.

AS to the inroads of plastics on the button market, Mr. Rie says that at present the best of the synthetics sell at a price which is not much lower than the price of trochus buttons. They are a very real threat to the shell industry.

But abandonment of shell means abandonment of considerable cap ital invested in shell-processing machinery, skilled shell workers, etc., which influences restrain a change-over to synthetics.

Rie indicates how good the best

synthetics are, as imitations of the! real thing. Professional experts cannot detect the genuine pearl-1 shell from the synthetic button at three feet. In fact, he knows of experienced men who have bought shirts with what they thought weri shell buttons and did not discover! until they made a close examina-l tion later, that they had purchased synthetic mountings.

Australian figures on mop exports for 1952 are not readily!

ailable; but the American figures i probably a close indica n of production there, as most not all of the shell has gone to 3 States. They indicate that, icreas in 1950, 1,268 tons at an erage price of 41.5 cents per and f.o.b. was imported, in 1952 5 price rose to 45.7 cents, but the antity fell to only 663 tons.

Mthough approval was given by j Commonwealth Government in