Western Samoa's

Bumper 1955 Trade

OFFICIAL figures for Western Samoa’s trade in 1955 reveal record export and import totals and a very comfortable trade balance. Totals, with 1954 figures in parenthesis, were: Exports £2,511,899 (£2,211,846), imports £1,894,542 (£1,710,494), and a favourable balance of £617,357 (£501,352).

Copra exports of 17,178 tons fetched £1,148,739, another record.

Cocoabean exports also exceeded the 1954 shipments and provided £882,510. Banana exports to New Zealand jumped from 276,135 cases in 1954 to 446,525 cases, bringing £463,035 (£300,259 in 1954).

As usual, the United Kingdom was Western Samoa’s best customer, taking £1,418,598 in produce, in re turn for £459,396 of goods supplied.

New Zealand took £596,595 and sup plied £591,769.

The pronounced unbalance of trade with the United Kingdom also applied to the USA, which bought £367,238 (mostly cocoabeans) and sold only £91,764. In contrast, the other dollar country, Canada, took only £8,171 and supplied £74,449.

The Legislative Assembly of Western Samoa was to debate the 1956 budget late March, with a strong recommendation from the NZ Government to view the present wave of public expenditure in the

light of the big drop in world cocoa prices and the impending termina tion of the MOF copra contract.