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.