MALAYSIA TO RESEARCH TIN, WARY ON VEG OILS TAX
Malaysia is to urge fellow tin
producing countries to contribute more money towards research
into new uses for the metal, Malaysian primary industries
minister Lim Keng Yaik told Reuters in an interview.
    Lim, in Brussels on a tour of Europe and America, said he
had instructed Malaysia's representatives on the executive
committee of the Association of Tin Producing Countries, ATPC,
to draw up a paper on the matter.
    Lim earlier met European Community farm commissioner Frans
Andriessen and industry commissioner Karl-Heinz Narjes.
    He said though it now appeared likely Commission proposals
for a tax on vegetable and marine oils and fats would be
defeated, he feared the Commission would revive the idea.
    Lim noted Andriessen this week promised that if the tax was
adopted and third countries suffered export losses as a result,
they would be compensated through access to the EC for
alternative exports.
    "Since most of our products are commodity based, I cannot
see how this would work out in our case," Lim said.
    Malaysian palm oil exports to the EC are worth about 250
mln dlrs a year.
    The tin research proposal would be presented at an ATPC
meeting to be held in Kuala Lumpur in September.
    "Not enough research and development effort has been put in
by tin producers and we have been pushed out by substitutes
such as aluminium, paper and plastics," Lim said.
    He mentioned the use of inorganic tin in pesticides as an
exciting possible new application.
    Lim said he could not estimate the amount of extra money
which needed to be spent on research into new uses before the
new paper was produced.
    He said Narjes told him there appeared no fundamental
barriers to EC states quickly ratifying the new International
Rubber Agreement, INRA, although translations of the accord
into some EC languages are still being awaited.
    Lim, who will sign and ratify the agreement on Malaysia's
behalf when he visits New York during his current tour, said it
was important there should not be a long "interregnum" between
the old agreement lapsing in October and the new one coming
into force.
    He described the present accord as a model for commodity
agreements due to its being signed by nearly all producing and
consuming countries and by virtue of its review systems and
control over buffer stock management.
 Reuter
