Interesting Changes in

editorial comment

Interesting Changes in Market Conditions

ALL the information that has be come available through the visit of Unilever’s chief buyer suggests that the world’s market for copra, under present international conditions, is likely to remain firm.

The growing masses of the world’s population are moving steadily towards higher standards of living, and more and better food; and the coconut is rated high as a foodstuff throughout the world. ~T lJ e world’s best judges appear to think that, so long as there is no war, there will be an immediate and profitable market for all the good class copra that can be produced.

The recent visits of Unilever representatives suggest that the marketing conditions governing copra production may be very dif ferent after 1957, from what they were before World War II Then, the production of the South Pacific Islands was handled almost wholly by private agents and the big trading companies. Since the

war, the collection, shipment and marketing of copra, and the pay ment of producers, have become a Government responsibility.

Within that period, also, copra crushing mills established in Fiji and New Guinea and extended in Australia, have become an import ant buying factor.

The tendency now appears to be to retain collective marketing and, to some degree, collective buying, to the exclusion of the big trading companies. But the big trading companies, in various ways, in influence—and in some instances control —the operations of the copra producers.

It will be interesting to see how it all works out.