Brightest Jewel In The

Burns Philp Crown

Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd was the brightest jewel in the Burns Philp and Co Ltd crown in the half-year ended December 31. The Sydneybased parent company, although lifting the net operating half-year profit by 10.8% to $6,680,000 ($6,031,000 in 1 975), had disappointing results in some divisions and, as yet, has had no return from a huge investment in Robe River.

The 70%-owned South Seas company, based in Suva, and operating in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, lifted net profit by 60.1% in the half-year to SFI.4 million. This excellent result was achieved mainly through its merchandising division breaking even. In the past this division has

traded at a loss, There were also better returns from the branches in both Samoas and Tonga. The gross revenue for the six months was $F22.4 million, which was 8.3% higher than that of the six months to December 31, 1975. The interim dividend is 15c a share.

The parent company is changing course, shedding its low-yielding in vestment portfolio in favour of direct participation in industrial ac tivities which it can control. The benefits of this policy are starting to show through in some areas, In the six months, sales at $220,- 216,000 were 28.3% higher than in the December 31, 1975, half-year.

New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Brian Talboys, talks to the Solomons' trade mission team. The Solomons Foreign Trade Minister, Mr Ghemu, is second from the right.

50th birthday

for Breckwoldt

March, 1977, marked the 50th anniversay of the founding of the Hamburg-based Breckwoldt organ isation, well-known on the Pacific Islands trading scene.

The company’s Australian sub sidiary, Breckwoldt Australia, is almost solely engaged in the export of a wide range of Australian goods, mainly foodstuffs, to the Islands, where there are 10 Breckwoldt of fices, seven of them in Papua New Guinea.

Another Breckwoldt organ isation, Projects Procurements Pty Ltd, specialises in the supply of foodstuffs required by mining and construction camps in Australia and overseas.

The founder of the firm, Mr Wilhelm Breckwoldt, started an ex port-import company under his own name in Hamburg 50 years ago. and following intensive overseas sales tours by him and later also by his top executives, branches were open ed in Rabaul (1934), Suva (1934), Papeete (1936) and Apia (1937).

Branches were later opened in Venezuela and Nigeria.

Among joint development pro jects in which Breckwoldt has taken part are a now-completed soap fac tory in Lae. Papua New Guinea, and the brewery project now under way in Apia, Western Samoa.

Companies represented by Breck woldt in a number of countries in clude Daimler-Benz. Volkswagen.

Bosch, Hoechst and Agfa-Gaevert.

Eight countries

meet over sugar

The price at which Fiji will supply sugar to a number of neighbouring islands was fixed at a recent regional meeting in Suva, which dis cussed a long-term sugar agreement.

Represented at the meeting, at the headquarters of the South Pacific Bureau of Economic Co-operation, were the Gilbert Islands, Niue, Nauru, Tonga, Tuvalu, the Solomons, Western Samoa and Fiji.

The meeting also agreed on quota allocations. The coming year will be the second in which the agreement was operated. SPEC headquarters issued a statement saying that the price and quotas had been fixed, but for some reason or other did not state the price or the quota