New Copra Price
p. 16 · Read in the full issue
Gives Us
Another Million P.A.
ALL British South Pacific countries are now settled down to the new rates for copra (based on the British Ministry of Food 9-years’ contract) of £7O Stg. per ton at Territories’ ports—a rise of li per cent. (£5 per ton) over 1953.
The details of how this price ultimately reaches the planter are shown on the last page of this issue.
The London open market price has fallen to about £BO Stg., cif.
This is equal to about £67 Stg. per ton, fob —which means that, under the new MOF price, our planters at £7O Stg. per ton fob are getting a slight advantage over the open market. However, during most of 1953, under the MOF contract, the advantage lay with the Ministry of Food.
For the South Pacific as a whole, the new MOF price means an addi tional £1,000,000 per annum.
The Papua-New Guinea produc tion now is close to 100,000 tons per annum, so the new price means that P-NG planters will get more than £500,000 additional this year.
Copra production is now worth over £6,000,000 p.a. to P-NG.
The Fiji copra interests fought right up to mid-March for a rise equal to 10 per cent; but finally were beaten by the sharp fall ini the London open market in Feb ruary, and reluctantly accepted the: 11 per cent, offered by MOF. Next; to sugar, copra is Fiji’s biggest in dustry, and brings the Colony more: than £2,500,000 annually.
Fiji takes £lO per ton from Fiji: native producers for a Fijian De velopment Fund. It amounted to< £320,000 at the end of 1953, and! will be spent for the benefit of] Fijian native communities only.