[?]MOF Offer Will Certainly
p. 15 · Read in the full issue
Copra Price for 1956
[?]MOF Offer Will Certainly Be Lower Next Year
Negotiations between the British copra-producing countires [of the South Pacific and the British Ministry of Food will take I place this month, and the agreed price for 1956 should be (announced in January.
IREE market price in 1955 showed fah overall fall and it is ex- I pepted that the price fixed for 56 will be lower than that for 1955. ider the agreement the price can t rise or fall by more than 10 f cent, in any one year.
Although many producers are ready resigned to the full 10 per it. fall in 1956, some large organ itions are hopeful that the South fcific countries will do better than at. [t was expected last year that the 1 would be the permissible 10 per it. (and Fiji and BSI announced is) but Australia stood out for kter treatment and the MOF ally agreed to a reduction of ?htly over 7 per cent. This gave iducers a fixed price based on an )F price of £65 Stg. f.o.b Islands rt. From this amount, the vari -5 Pacific Islands governments de ct charges for freight, insurance, rinkage, export taxes, stabilisation ids, etc. i survey of prices of free market fra, quoted month by month in i Pacific Islands Monthly over the t 12 months shows the following:
Straits Copra, Cif London
faking the sum of £lsStg. to rep lent the freight, insurance, shrink b and sundry charges, incurred tween islands port and London, it n be seen that Pacific planters ve been getting the best of the rgain for the last 12 months, however, unless a world-wide de- Jssion occurs in the next two ars, the Ministry of Food will still ish the 9-years agreement on the ;ht side of the ledger. In the fly years of the agreement, Pacific inters were receiving from the DF about half world price for Rir copra.
Pacific planters with memories ig enough to go back to the de ession days of the 30’s, are already
thinking of the end of the Agree ment with some trepidation.
Failure to organise now could mean the return to the days when planters were at the mercy of the vegetable-oil combines.
Many planters’ organisations are of the opinion that any instrumentality set up as a bargaining medium for Pacific producers will, to be effective, have to be backed by the govern ments concerned.
New Guinea CMB Warns
Planters
A MARKED improvement in the quality of Papua-New Guinea copra will have to be made be fore the end of the MOF agree ment in 1957 if the Territory pro duct is to compete on the open world market.
This warning was given planters in Port Moresby in November by the chairman of the Copra Market ing Board, Mr. lan McDonald.
He said that the Board believed
that urgent steps would have to be taken. He appealed to all who were concerned with the production of copra to take the situation seriously.
Smoke-drying should be discon tinued in favour of hot-air dried copra and FMS.
In the first 10 months of 1955, 45 per cent, of the copra received by the Board was smoke-dried; this should be reduced to no more than 10 per cent.; and hot-air dried in creased from its present 30 per cent, to 75 per cent.
Date £ Stg. per ton.
December 14, 1954 . 74.5 January 14, 1955 .. 74.5 February 19. 1955 . 71.5 April 1, 1955 . . 67 May 6, 1955 . . 65.10 June 5, 1955 67 August 5, 1955 64 5 September 5. 1955 . 64.5 October 4, 1955 66.15 November 3, 1955 . . 65 December 2, 1955 65.15