INRO accord in sight despite leadership row

INRO accord in sight despite leadership row

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): The International Natural Rubber
Organization (INRO) ended talks yesterday "optimistic" a new pact
could be in place in January, even though no solution was in
sight to a Malaysia-Indonesia dispute over INRO's top post.

Malaysia and Indonesia are vying for INRO's executive-
directorship, and Kuala Lumpur has threatened not to ratify the
new third International Natural Rubber Agreement (INRA III) if it
fails to win the post, now held by Thailand.

That dispute has put a spanner in the works of the
ratification process, delegates said.

Failure to break that deadlock by year-end will result in the
liquidation of the 17-year old Kuala Lumpur-based INRO, which
groups six producing members and 21 consuming members.

But the INRO council, in a brief communique at the end of a
two-day meeting, said that based on statements made by delegates,
it was optimistic of an accord by Jan. 1.

Council chairman S. Anura Ekanayake of Sri Lanka urged all
members to ratify the accord as soon as possible to enable the
implementation of the four-year accord, hammered out in February
following U.N.- sponsored talks in Geneva.

"The optimism stems from the fact that a number of countries
have indicated that the process (of ratification) is in motion,"
INRO buffer stock manager James Hegarty said.

"The delegates were optimistic they would certainly be able to
get the relevant documents to the United Nations by year-end,"
Hegarty told AFP, declining to comment on the Malaysia-Indonesia
dispute.

Without the two key exporters, INRO will not garner sufficient
exporter votes for it to be implemented in 1997, although key
consumer nations have given their support.

Head of Malaysia's delegation to INRO, Ahmad Zubeir Noordin,
said: "Talks are still going on between Malaysia and Indonesia to
come an understanding (with regards to the INRO's top post)."

A decision by the European Union on Monday to "provisionally
implement" the accord from Jan. 1 means that countries
representing 77 percent of world rubber importers have agreed to
ratify the agreement.

This has exceeded the 75 percent of votes which must be
gathered from consumers for the new accord to come into force to
replace INRA II, which expired in December last year.

But INRO's key exporting members have yet to give their
required 75 percent backing.

So far, those who have ratified or have provisionally agreed
to do so are Japan, Spain, Greece, and Austria representing the
consumers and Thailand, Nigeria and Sri Lanka from the producers
side.

The U.S. Senate ratified the agreement in July, but the
documents have yet to reach the U.N.