Tin export quotas to be scrapped by June
Tin export quotas to be scrapped by June
SINGAPORE (Reuter): The Association of Tin Producing Countries (ATPC) has decided to scrap tin export quotas in June 1996, a Malaysian Chamber of Mines official said.
"As far as the quotas are concerned, they will end at the end of June 1996," Muhamad Nor Muhamad, the chamber executive secretary, told Reuters yesterday.
He said the decision was taken at the ATPC ministerial meeting in Santa Cruz, Bolivia in September which he attended.
He said the ATPC decision to continue the quotas for another six months from January next year was to allow "an orderly transition to a free market."
Bolivia's Mining Secretary Teddy Cuentas announced in September that the current system of quotas would be maintained until June 1996 and said a new evaluation of the quota system would be made in June.
But the Malaysian chamber said the Bolivian decision meant that the export scheme, set up after the collapse of the International Tin Council in 1985, had come to an end.
"The quotas will end in June. After that the issue will only come up again at the next conference of tin ministers, which will be in October. Then they will decide how to stabilize the market if necessary," Muhamad said.
"The ATPC decision to relieve the market of supply demand constraints by mid-1996 is very much in line with the Malaysian tin industry's position since 1987 that the tin market should be free to determine its own level without the necessity of imposition of economic constraints," a chamber statement said.
Chamber president Abdul Shukor Shahar said the six-month extension from January "will provide the necessary orderly transition for the tin market to evolve towards a free market status".
It said the ATPC decision followed improving market fundamentals with supply/demand moving towards equilibrium with available commercial stocks standing at nearly 20,000 tons -- a level considered manageable.
The ATPC groups Australia, Bolivia, China, Indonesia. Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand and Zaire.
Brazil has signed up as a member. The chamber said it urged Peru, Portugal and Vietnam to sign up as well.