To Woo

New Zealand

Fiji Businessmen

From an Auckland correspondent

Recognition of Fiji as the hub of the South Pacific md as a growing market of vital importance has mcouraged New Zealand to mount its biggest overseas rade presentation of the year at Suva in July.

For six days New Zealand will be on show for the businessman, the potential tourist and the man-in-the treet. The presentation—although basically a trade iromotion —will also attempt to give some idea of vhat New Zealand stands for, what it has achieved, md what it has to offer.

As a live entertainment sideline, Suva will be offered wo very different shows. One of these is Theatre Action, group of five young people who, by the use of mime nd improvisation, exploit the almost forgotten art of ommunication by movement rather than through words.

The other is an up-dated trade version of the very uccessful tourist promotion show that performed last ear in Australia. The show is organised by New ealand’s top television producer Kevan Moore and will tar Ray Columbus, one of the leaders of the New ealand pop scene, together with other pop singers nd some of the dancers from Moore’s award-winnine Happen Inn” TV show.

These two groups, together with New Zealand films, ill take over the Suva Town Hall auditorium through ut the week of the presentation. The Town Hall itself ill be filled with the trade exhibition and displays.

“Enthusiasm for this project has been overwhelming, particularly among New Zealand manufacturers and exporters,” says Mr. E. J. Sutch, project manager, of the New Zealand Department of Industries and Com merce. “We have had more requests for space than the Suva Town Hall could possibly provide. This meant we were able to be selective. What will be on display— and this will be considerable—is only a sample of what New Zealand industry has to offer.”

The organisers have arranged to bring a party of Lautoka businessmen to Suva during the week.

One attractive feature of New Zealand Week at Suva will be the New Zealand Wool Board’s demonstrations of spinning and weaving each afternoon in the auditorium foyer. The New Zealand Army Band will present several recitals, culminating on the evening of Saturday, July 8, in an open-air concert with massed Fijian choirs.

The Fiji Museum will display collections of New Zealand contemporary paintings and Maori artefacts, and show an exhibition of New Zealand primary school art.

Secondary school art will be on view at the Air New Zealand offices in Victoria Parade.

“Answer a simple question—win a valuable prize” will be the theme of a week-long quiz at the Town Hall trade display, in which visitors chosen at random will be asked simple questions about New Zealand. The first two to answer correctly on any particular day will qualify for the final in the auditorium on the Friday evening.

Compere Hugh Leonard of Radio Fiji will pose more questions on New Zealand in a process of elimination.

The three winners will receive prizes from the New Zealand High Commissioner, Sir John Grace, who will also act as adjudicator.

The overall presentation has many other facets an essay competition among Forms 3 and 4 pupils through out Fiji, for example—all designed to promote New Zealand and foster closer ties with its northern neighbour.

“We are going to great lengths to make the trade presentation a success,” Mr. Sutch said. “We have long and close ties with Fiji and there is no reason why New Zealand should not have a bigger slice of the available trade.”

section of the plant of New Zealand Aluminium Smelters Bluff, South Island. One of the world's largest, the smelter sauces aluminium both for local and overseas markets and is New Zealand's biggest single industrial undertaking.

Forestry and its related industries are important sources of New Zealand's export earnings. Mount Maunganui, port of the North Island city of Tauranga, is the main outlet for the export of logs. Shipments from this port have grown from 158 tons (160.5 tonnes) in 1957 to an annual volume of more than 1.1 million tons (1.117 million tonnes).