The structure of wool and wool textile production, trade and consumption 1958-69

Abstract

In this paper we have set out, in the form of charts and tables, the results of an attempt to measure the disposition of wool produced by the major producing and consuming countries in the post-war period. Our aim is to present a picture of the structure of the world wool market, by tracing through the major flows of wool from the point of raw production to its final use in the form of wool type textiles measured in clean fibre content, and to identify the growing points of world demand for wool. The paper is mainly descriptive and no attempt is made at analysis, though the data presented was assembled in the course of an analysis of factors affecting wool prices. In such an analysis we would be concerned, as with the analysis of prices of other agricultural products, with the interaction of supply and demand. But unlike other New Zealand export products, for example meat, in which we confine our attention to one particular type of meat in a few particular countries, we focus on wool because of the infinite possibilities of substitution possible between different grades and types. And we have to take as our market the world as a whole, since nearly every country in the world consumes wool in greater or smaller quantities, if only in the form of small quantities of imported wool textiles.