New Tariffs Give Confidence
pp. 12-13 · Read in the full issue
To Nc Coffee Industry
By a Staff Writer
The Australian Tariff Board’s report on the New Guinea coffee industry has provided the industry with a heartening lift by guaranteeing it assistance for at least another two years.
IT removes the air of uncertainty in the NG industry and allows it to face the future with some con fidence.
The report was released in Can berra in November. Its recommenda tions provide for: • Raw coffee from P-NG to con tinue to enjoy duty-free entry into Australia. 9 Import duties on overseas coffee to be increased (from 3d to 5d per lb for raw or kiln dried; from 6d to 9d per lb for roasted;from 1/6 to 5/3 per lb for con centrated extracts, either soluble or instant).
The Australian Government an nounced when it released the report that the new tariffs would apply on the roasted and soluble coffee immediately.
The increase proposed for raw coffee will have to wait for overseas negotiations required under the GATT agreement. When it begins
Australian roasters who use frc 25 and up to 30 per cent. N< Guinea coffee will get a duty i mission of 2d a lb; if they use per cent, or more they will recei the full 5d remission.
Meanwhile, the present inter arrangements to assist the market! of NG coffee in Australia will cc tinue. Ordinarily, coffee from sour* other than P-NG pays 3d per duty, but this is temporarily waiv in the proportion of 72 units of ov' seas coffee for every 28 units Australian roaster buys from P-h' at the current agreed prices (rangi: from 4/2 to 2/9 per lb accordi to grade).
The new tariffs will be review in two years. But the Act.
Minister for Territories, Mr. Willi i McMahon, warned roasters that object of the tariffs was to ensu that a significant quantity of H coffee was sold, and unless this v done there would be a prompt revhi Australian instant coffee manuft
irers are the largest users of NG ;ans (last year 89 per cent, of the G crop went to Australia, Holland »ok about nine per cent.).
The Australian manufacturers have ;cently had to compete against a Dod of cheap imported solubles, ut the new steep rise in tariffs on lese will help sales of the two main ical producers (Nestles and Bushells) id consequently mean larger sales : NG beans.
By overseas standards the NG iffee industry is insignificant—the :cord 1960-61 output of 5,600,000 was a mere .6 per cent, of the orld production.
But it is of growing importance NG. It earns about £1,100,000 in cports, being fourth after copra, >conut oil and cocoa. Estimates of e capital investment in the NG )ffee industry range from £4,500,000 £6,500,000.
The Tariff Board began hearings to the NG industry in Sydney in ctober, 1961, and later visited NG. [ieir report was compiled last April.
Since then, a five-year inter itional coffee agreement has been ached among world coffee-growers, eluding NG. NG has been defined a “Trust Territory” and given emission for a quota-free export of 10,000 bags of 60 kilos (132 lb).
However, one of the conditions of e agreement will be the abandon ed of new coffee acreage; P-NG ill not be allowed to set aside rther land for coffee production— lich is what the Tariff Board fore w.
The decisions of the Tariff Board d the new international agreement 11 result in a certain amount of -organisation in the NG industry, it on the whole it has been given degree of security that it has not d before.