Sugar Price

Falls Again

FOLLOWING negotiations between Commonwealth exporting countries and the British Min istry of Food, the 1955 price for raw sugar has been fixed at £4O/15/sterling per ton GIF London. This is a drop of 5/- per ton on the 1954 price.

Under the present Agreement, which has been extended to expire now in December, 1962, Fiji is per mitted to supply the MOF with 125,000 tons of sugar annually Bal ance Of the Colony’s crop is sold on the free market. Free market price— usually the price received for Cuban sugar—has lately been about £lO per ton below the MOF price.

The 5/- drop in raw sugar is not expected to make any appreciable difference to the price paid for cane grown by Fiji-Indian farmers.

Growers expect the 1955 crop to ex ceed this year’s, and the returns to be correspondingly greater.

The Fiji Sugar Stabilisation Fund, which at the end of 1953 was £1,500,000, is expected to be about £1,750,000 at December 31, 1954.

U The Van Camp Sea Food Com pany sent Mr. Martin Quamma, of San Diego, California, to American Samoa to assume managerial duties in place of Mr. Don Doran, previ ously reported as going there. With him went Mr. William Stephans, who will assist in production pro blems when the new Japanese boats arrive. First to arrive, Kaiko Maru, was due November 25. She is a 300tons ship with a crew of 28 men.

Van Camp’s former manager at Pago, Mr. Paul Hedrick, with wife and daughter, were flown to Canton Island on November 15.