The International Tin Committee, which is the restriction and regulate ing body, is to meet here next Thursday. As the export quota was fixed at the last meeting till the end of 1941, it is expected that the coming conference will merely draft a new international restriction agreement. The current agreement will terminate at the end of December, but at the last committee meeting representatives of all the major tin-producing countries recommended its prolongation for tive years.
Since then reports have been circulating in London that Japan is exercising pressure on Thailand to sell its entire production to the Axis countries and to resign consequently from the restriction agreement. It is learned authoritatively that reports so far are exaggerated. No indication has been received here that Th: land plans to change. Anyhow, the entire output of. Thailand's mines, which amounted to 17,447 long tons last year, were converted into Straits tin at Singapore and Penang. As no tin smelters exist in the country, it is possible that its exports to Japan would consist in concentrates. Japan's smelting capacity is too small to convert Thailand concentrates into metal. Even if the Thailand Government accepted the Japanese demands, as is regarded unlikely here, continuance of international tin scheme will not be torpedoed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.