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7 February 2005
Highlights from the February 2005 edition of Monthly Market Briefing:
3 February 2005
The Australian Wool Market finished this week with prices 0.3% higher, on average, at sales in Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle.
9 February 2005
The Turkish economy grew strongly during the first half of 2004 and remains among the fastest growing economies in the OECD. The country's healthy annual economic growth has been driven by manufacturing and exports in particular.
8 February 2005
The start of this millennium saw global fibre production increase by over 400 per cent compared to production levels in the 1940s when wool and cotton had a combined market share of around 85 per cent of total textile production.
11 February 2005
The Australian Wool Market finished this week with prices 0.5% higher, on average, at sales in Sydney, Launceston and Fremantle.
President George Bush has proposed an overall 5% cut in all US farm subsidies in 2006 in a plan to reduce record budget deficits. Subsidy cuts would be achieved by placing caps on production payments to individual producers
According to statistics from China Customs, exports of chiefly wool products in aggregate rose in both volume and in US dollar value terms in the eleven month period ending in November 2004.
15 February 2005
The level of wool fibre demand in the third quarter of 2004 have resulted in Korea's lowest level of early stage wool usage since the country's financial crisis of 1998.
17 February 2005
The volume and value of wool textile and apparel imports to the US grew strongly during November 2004. In fact the year-on-year rise in wool products outstripped the gains seen by the other key fibre products (cotton and synthetics).
The Australian Trade Minister, Mark Vaile, in a recent media release is hopeful that market access for Australian wool into China will improve with a Free Trade Agreement between the two countries.
18 February 2005
The Australian Wool Market finished this week with prices 2.6% lower, on average, at sales in Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle.
Cotton prices continued their trickery at the end of January. Even though prospective growth in demand by China gave cause for cautious optimism at the start of January, prices remained at low levels.
24 February 2005
The United States has signalled its determination and commitment to make progress on reducing world trade barriers on agriculture ahead of a four day meeting with the European Union, which started on Monday.
23 February 2005
Matthew Flugge has been appointed General Manager, Corporate Affairs at Australian Wool Innovation Limited (AWI), company Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Len Stephens announced today.
22 February 2005
Higher borrowing costs and weaker house prices in the UK contributed to slower consumer spending in December, which resulted in weakened final quarter sales. More recent figures from the office of National Statistics show a moderate recovery, however the robust growth seen since mid-2003 seems to have come to a halt.
Wool auction sales in Australia rose strongly in December, indicating a lift in raw wool demand, despite stagnant wool prices. However, January saw a slightly different picture.
1 February 2005
After moving in concert with the prices for other commodities since at least the early 1990s, wool prices seemed to become counter-cyclical towards the end of 2004, as the drivers of prices of different commodities have changed.
Consumer purchases of winter clothing in Japan remained sluggish on the back of record breaking warm weather throughout 2004.
4 February 2005
The government of India late last year decided to phase out the Duty Entitlement Passbook Scheme (DEPB) as from 31st March this year. The DEPB scheme is a rebate on the raw material input import duties, as long as the finished product is exported.