INRO calls for rubber pact

INRO calls for rubber pact

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): The International Natural Rubber Organization (INRO) ended two days of talks yesterday with a call on its 27 members to quickly ratify the new UN-brokered price pact hammered out in Geneva in February.

INRO endorsed a call on the UN secretary-general to arrange for the new pact to be opened for signature from now until Dec. 28 for it to succeed the 1987 second International Natural Rubber Agreement (INRA II).

"The (INRO) council has urged governments to do their utmost to ratify the new agreement as soon as possible so that it could be enforced immediately after the expiry of INRA II," said council chairman Anura Ekanayake of Sri Lanka.

INRA III will be enforced for a four-year duration as agreed by members during negotiations in Geneva, instead of five years as in the previous two pacts, officials said.

There had been no indication so far of any dissenting member refusing to ratify the accord, INRO officials said.

INRO, which groups six producers led by Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, and 21 consuming nations led by the United States, Japan and the European Union, administers INRA through operation of a buffer stock mechanism to stabilize prices.

The governments have been given until Jan. 21, 1997, to deposit instruments of ratification or to notify provisional application of the agreement, Ekanayake said.