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.