Need Another Waiver
p. 19 · Read in the full issue
ATT Again G Timber Exports Need Another Waiver
IHE Australian Tariff Board has recommended to the Common wealth Government that • Provision be made in the [ariff for the admission of timber )ther than plywood, originating n and exported from the Terri ory of Papua and New Guinea, ree of duty; and • That a total quantity, in any ne financial year, of 12,000,000 q. feet of plywood originating in nd exported from the Territory f Papua and New Guinea, be dmitted under By-law free of uty. he Commonwealth Government, May 27, made provision for the md recommendation (relating to wood) to come into effect im iiately. he implementation of the recom idation relating to timber appears )e another matter —according to official statement “the con ning parties of GATT will be reached to obtain an extension the existing waiver concerning orts from Papua and New nea.”
'esumably there is some reason her than the fact that the Com iwealth Government has a 51 cent, interest in the only factory lucing plywood in the Terri —why ply can be admitted at •i while timber must await the sing of GATT. will be remembered that the aan rubber planters’ case for re ion of 2d per pound duty had et the permission of GATT be the claim could be considered the Australian Tariff Board. ’T—on the grounds that the itory was an undeveloped try and its industries needed aragement—produced the neces waiver on that occasion. Pos it is this waiver that now needs msion.” 1953-54, over li million super of timber from P-NG entered ralia —and presumably paid . Over a quarter of it was in orm of battery separators and iase parts.
The Rubber Inquiry
THING has been heard of any ecommendations made in re gion to the rubber inquiry.
Tariff Board finished its sit in Papua in November, 1954, and as expected that its report 1 be made to Parliament early year. However, nothing has up in the Commonwealth
ament during the current
n, and as this is now nearing nd, probably nothing will be
heard of rubber until towards the end of 1955.
The ridiculous thing about this inquiry is that the whole rubber market situation has changed while the various deliberations have gone on—and could completely change again before Federal Parliament makes its decision.
At the time the planters first asked for remission of the duty, the Papuan industry was in a bad way.
Months went by while the blessing of GATT was solicited. By the time the matter came before the Tariff Board in Melbourne, in September, 1954, there was a slight improve ment in the industry’s prospects although many plantations were producing at a loss. By the time the inquiry ended, the price had risen sufficiently to make the industry profitable again and at the present time rubber prices give an adequate margin of profit.
However, next month or next year, the reverse could be the case— such have been the vagaries of the post-war rubber market. From a strategic point of view, a well established rubber industry in Papua seems to have everything to recom mend it. But members of the Tariff Board made it clear during their sittings—or appeared to —that they were not unduly interested in this aspect of the case. t By killing two jungle-terrorists in Malaya on May 10—the day on which it was announced that the Fijian troops would return home in early 1956 —the Fijians brought their tally to 181 killed.