Tin producers open talks on quota system
Tin producers open talks on quota system
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): The world's key tin producers opened a meeting here yesterday to evaluate eight years of joint efforts in limiting supply to restore tin's luster amid fresh calls by Indonesia to scrap the quota system.
The eight-member Association of Tin Producing Countries (ATPC) kicked off semi-annual talks with discussion of administrative and financial matters.
"Officials will sift through statistics on production and export, including evaluation of the global excess stocks on Tuesday ahead of the three-day meeting of the executive council from Wednesday," an ATPC official said.
The council is to conduct an annual review the association's supply rationalization scheme (SRS) and make recommendations for a ministerial decision on whether to continue or scrap the system.
ATPC's ministers are to meet in mid-September in Bolivia to decide on the council's recommendations.
The ATPC -- grouping Australia, Bolivia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand and Zaire -- implemented the SRS in 1987 hoping to reduce global excess of tin stocks from 76,000 tons to 20,000 tons by end of 1993.
But by end of 1994, rolling stocks remained high at almost 50,000 tons on unofficial estimates.
The SRS sets voluntary limits on the exports of member countries, which agreed in September last year to reduce exports to 90,600 tons in 1995, from 98,000 tons a year earlier, to boost prices.
While Thailand appears to favor continuing another year the SRS, Indonesia has made fresh calls to join Malaysia in calling for the scheme to be scrapped, saying a free market might expedite the recovery of the languishing global tin market.
Industry officials said the quota system had also been rendered irrelevant as some member countries were producing less than the quota allocated to them, while others have continued to exceed the limit.
China, which exceeded by 171 percent its 1993 export quota, exported 44, 379 tons last year compared with its allocated quota of 20,000 tons, industry officials said.
But an ATPC source said "the overall stock surplus figures look better this year than a year ago."
The price of tin on the Kuala Lumpur Tin Market ended Monday eight sen lower at 14.15 ringgit per kilogram (2.2 pounds) from Friday's close, after hitting a two-year high of above 16.00 ringgit (US$6.40) about six months ago.