Trade Mission

Sents Critical Of Trade Mission

\t considerable expense, the

tralian Department of Trade

r ganising an A ustralian Trade don to proceed soon to the td Territories of the South

fic —especially New Cale

d and Fiji—in an endeavour

?// more Australian goods.

BRE are many well-known

nerchants with headquarters in

ly, Melbourne and Brisbane, specialise on the distribution of ; in the SW Pacific; and some said emphatically that, if Aus is to sell more goods to the Is, there must be new effort, n salesmanship, but at diplo level.

stralia cannot perceptibly in

: the quantity of goods sold to slands, unless she buys more Is products, in return; and she t do this while present condi

— especially tariffs remain,

is huge unbalance of trade be- Australia and the Islands.

Islands Agents Association, dney, at a meeting held in were caustic on the subject of ustralian Trade Mission. They that a copy of a letter sent by

leading businessman, Mr.

s Sullivan, to the president of ission be also sent directly to inister for Trade. following are extracts from Sullivan’s letter, which gives interesting information on the position in New Caledonia. flee that in New Caledonia tour 'opose to spend from Saturday, 11, to Tuesday. August 15, in local commercial and civic and arranging that members the many tourist attractions in a”. representatives (including the have made more than 70 visits Caledonia, making stays from ne to three weeks, yet have never the leading tourist attraction— the East Coast. We cannot i accomplishing much during a d, including Monday, re doubtless aware that for many he Australian Government has led an office in Noumea, and the ;an recall five different Common officers in residence for varying In addition, some of our com also regularly visit New Cale- So you can see that the market ;y well catered for. In the opinion, you will merely be able rm what the Minister for Trade knows, that the reason why New a does not buy more Australian ; because the necessary import are not available. lany years, New Caledonia was ,

regarded as an Australian commercial dependency, and one of the principal items sent there was flour. As you are probably aware, the French are possibly the world’s largest bread-eaters. Yet not a single bag of Australian flour is shipped there nowadays, because import licences cannot be obtained.

So far as that other staple commodity, sugar, is concerned, this is obtained from Belgium (beet) and from England (cane), our London office being a regular shipper of sugar from Europe to NC.

Approximately 2,500 items can be im ported from the UK and other signatory nations on a “free exchange” basis into New Caledonia, whilst all goods from Australia are subject to import and exchange quotas.

Actually, goods of foreign origin are subject to higher customs duties than those from France; but, where Australia could compete with foreign countries so far as price is concerned, we are un able to do so because of licence un availability.

We could go on at length to describe the futility of your trip to New Cale donia, so far as business is concerned.

However, you certainly will find the residents very hospitable and no doubt you will thoroughly enjoy yourselves.

You will be able to buy French goods at lower prices than in Australia, and you will also be able to buy lines, such as Kiwi shoe polish, made in England.

So far as Fiji is concerned, you will find that you are up against tough com petition from England, and you will there see English jams, confectionery canned fruits, etc.—possibly made from Australian sugar—but still cheaper to land than similar articles from Aus tralia.

In conclusion, the writer believes that the answer to Australia’s export troubles is agreements with other countries.

Trade is a two-way street, and they are

as anxious to do business with us as we are with them. But our excessively high British Preferential Tariff does not help us in our negotiations with foreign countries, who naturally regard it as discrimination against them.

No doubt one of the answers which will be given to the Islands agents, and to Mr. Sullivan’s letter, will be along the lines that Austra lian businesses with established sales in the Islands might not be ex pected to welcome more Australian competitors—especially if they feel that there is little extra business to be done until the political strings are adjusted. But it would be non sense to lay too much stress on this point.

The agents are quite genuine in their effort to try to get across to the Government and to other busi nessmen the truths of Islands trade.

What they are saying is, settle the political problems first and then send in the salesmen.

The members of the mission will probably soon find this out for them selves. If first-hand experiences are what count, then good will come from the mission.

And in addition there is always the possibility that, despite the doubts of the agents, somewhere along the line the mission will make an un expected break-through—if only into the consciences of Australia’s economic advisers.