Tin producers meet

Tin producers meet

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): The world's leading tin producers begin
meeting here today against a backdrop of concern over
persistently high excess stocks largely blamed for the weak
prices of the metal, officials said.

Industry experts said the surplus, estimated at 38,700 tons at
the end of March, was slowing down the recovery of tin, which had
long been in the doldrums due to oversupply.

The Association of Tin Producing Countries (ATPC), which
begins Wednesday its 35th executive council meeting, with China
as a new member, is expected to examine production and export
figures of each member country before confirming the latest
official estimate of the global overhang, officials said.

The meeting is to review progress of the association's supply
rationalization scheme (SRS), launched in 1987 in a bid to
expedite depletion of excess stocks, then estimated at over
80,000 tons, to bolster prices.

The ATPC, which groups Australia, Bolivia, China, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand and Zaire, accounts for 67 percent of
the world's supply of tin. Brazil, a leading producer is an
observer.