Where The Money Goes:
pp. 59-61 · Read in the full issue
Another Trade Gap For Fiji
Prom a Suva Correspondent Fiji had a visible adverse trade balance of £6,766,000 in 1961, a gap which the Commerce and Industries Officer, Mr.
R. W. Parkinson, who is responsible for compiling trade statistics, described as “depressing”. But adverse trade gaps are nothing new in Fiji, for only in two of the last 10 years has the value of exports exceeded imports.
BUT the figure of £6,766,000 is re duced to £4,066,000 when re exports of £2,700,000 are taken into consideration. About half the re export trade is in petroleum products, the greater part of it for refuelling aircraft at Nadi, and ships’ stores.
Next in importance are textiles at £268,000, followed by vehicles £191,000, radio £119,000, metal manufactures £104,000 and clothing £90,000.
Exports in 1961 at £10,434,000 fell sharply from the 1960 figure of £12,780,000, mainly because of the drop in shipments of sugar (the 1960 sugar troubles caused this) from £8,700,000 to £5,900,000. Other ex ports generally were up in both value
and quantity, although the year was a poor one for commodity prices.
Coconut oil exports rose in quantity from 17,985 tons to 23,736 tons, but the value at a little more than £2,000,000 was only comparable with the 1960 return as the average return a ton dropped from £B9/14/- to £B5/18/-. Oil cake, a by-product of the coconut, was worth £202,000.
Copra exports which had fallen to almost negligible proportions in 1959 (84 tons) rose to 2,499 tons in 1960 and 5,893 tons last year. Last year’s copra exports, all of which went to Japan, were worth £338,000. Thus the total value of all products from coconuts was about £2,600,000 in 1961.
Gold was the third most important
individual export and rose from 71,677 oz in 1960 to 95,349 oz, worth £1,200,000 last year.
Three groups sugar, products from coconuts and gold accounted for 94 per cent, of all exports of
Dmestic production. Less important ;ms (but valuable nevertheless in a rained economy) were bananas at 240.000, biscuits £77,000, trochus id pearl shell £35,000, timber 53.000 and hides £19,000.
The metal exports, apart from gold, intinued their slump. Manganese as worth only £16,000 in 1961, impared with a substantial £450,000 i 1957, iron ore dropped from 100.000 in 1960 to £53,000, but in )57 the figure was only £5,000.
Clothing exports fell to only 15,500, after being at £30,000 to 55.000 in 1958, 1959 and 1960.
On the import side the figure was 17,200,000 —well up on the 1960 »ure of £16,400,000, but still behind ie record year of 1958 when Fiji »ent £17,600,000. With a growing Dpulation, import figures have gener ly risen steadily. Ten years ago the iports were a fraction less than ),400,000.
The food group at round the 5.500.000 mark has been more or ss static for the last five years ,and mges round 20 per cent, of total iports. Sharps was the main single ;m imported at £545,000, followed / flour at £386,000, and meat 545.000, Rice has fluctuated a lot in the st five years, ranging from 1,886 ms in 1957, to 8,092 tons in 1959, id down to 4,149 tons last year, ice imports last year were worth 288.000, Dairy products were worth 207.000, tea £191,000, potatoes 122.000, onions £83,000, pulses 51.000 and confectionery £66,000.
Beer Imports Drop The Fiji brewery (opened in 1958) id two cigarette factories (opened 1956) have had a considerable im ict on imports of beer, cigarettes id tobacco. Beer imports, worth 509.000 in 1958, last year had •opped to £133,000. Spirits im irts had been reasonably stable •ound 65,000 gallons, but rose fairly larply in 1961 to- 73,393 gallons, dued at 148,000. Whisky was the lost popular drink (£82,000) fllowed by gin (£28,000), rum £19,000) and brandy (£13,000).
Cigarettes and tobacco imports intinued to fall and are now only very minor item in the bill. The ?61 imports were worth only 14.000, whereas in 1955 they cost ie Colony £273,000. On the other md imports of unmanufactured ►bacco cost £152,000 in 1961, but lis was a drop of £42,000 on the ?60 figure.
Fuels make a big hole in overseas irnings and in 1961 they were valued
at £2,092,000. Most of these are petroleum products, but a large part is recoverable for the 1961 re-exports were worth £1,326,000.
Chemicals are a substantial item and in 1961 they cost £1,142,000.
The main import under this heading was fertiliser at £223,000, followed by medicinal and pharmaceutical products £19,000, paint products of various types £153,000, perfumery, and ,o,let preparations £ 12°,00 0 and soaps and cleansing materials ±.104,000.
Manufactured goods were generally dominated by the textile products of which rayon and other synthetics
accounted for £590,000. This group was £lOO,OOO up on 1960 and ap pears to be rising steadily. Cotton materials at £537,000 were £136,000 up on 1960.
Tyres and tubes £303,000, cement £247,000, and fabricated metals £611,000 (including £143,000 for corrugated sheeting) were other items to send the import bill up.
The machinery and transport was £- 3>193i 000 compared with £2,698,000 in 1960, and among the miscellaneous group the main import item was clothing at £545,000, well up on the 1960 figure of £480,252.