8 This year’s AGM was one of the best attended meetings in years, with more than 120 members attending at the Anew Hotel in Hilton, the Richards Bay Training Centre and online. During the Chairman’s address, Philip Day reported that NCT members have reason to celebrate as NCT was able to market close to 2.3 million tonnes during the last financial year. NCT members also benefitted from the various price increases for both wattle and gum, which came close to a 24% increase during the year. Although these are great reasons to celebrate, he pointed out that the Chinese market is under pressure, and we have started seeing the impact of this as our Chinese customers have asked to delay some of their ships. In addition, the constant failure of SOE’s is ever-present and a cause for great concern. General Manager - Danny Knoesen, and Chief Financial Officer - Kerry Moffett corroborated what Philip Day reported on with the latest market information and financial results. Some of the biggest items on the management agenda remains the volatile exchange rate, the declining pulp pricing trend, and the issues we continue to experience with Transnet. Notwithstanding, NCT management is especially proud of the years’ financial performance and the positive impact this has had on members. We bid farewell to Graeme Freese and Micheon Ngubane who retired as directors at the AGM as they reached the retirement age. They have made great contributions during their tenure and their impact on NCT has not gone unnoticed. We celebrated the long-service awards of our members with 88 members being awarded certificates for 25 to 70 years of timber deliveries to NCT. We were proud to handover the Tree Farmer of Year trophies to Sydney Hlanguza and Terry Wolhuter for the Small Grower and Commercial Grower categories respectively. We also celebrated that the Commercial Services Department was awarded the Africa Supply Chain Excellence Award. This is certainly something to be proud of, and indicative that NCT is doing its best to serve its members. Members were treated with an inspirational talk by Stephen McGown who was held captive by Al Qaeda for almost six years. He shared the important lessons learned during this time. One thing is for certain, we need to be grateful for the little things and have appreciation for the simple things that make us human. After the AGM, the NCT Board re-appointed 2023 NCT Annual General Meeting The well-attended 74th AGM
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