News

The National Council of Wool Selling Brokers of Australia and its members have stumped up in support of the wool industry’s own charity, the Michael Manion Wool Industry Foundation. The money donated by NCWSBA will help the Foundation continue its vital work supporting those in need in rural Australia. The President of NCWBA, John Colley, presented a cheque for $8,000 to the Chairman of the Foundation, Ken Stock, at the Melbourne Wool Selling Centre on Thursday, 18th June. The money was…

The Australian Wool Production Forecasting Committee (AWPFC) met on Wednesday 29th April 2020 and reviewed its forecast of Australian shorn wool production for 2019/20. It also decided on its first forecast for 2020/21. The Committee revised its forecast for 2019/20 to 281 mkg greasy. This is a 6.3% decline on shorn wool production in 2018/19. It is higher than the 272 mkg greasy that the Committee forecast in November, in line with the AWTA test data to end March. The Committee’s first…

Australian wool auctions continued this week in all three selling centres, with new locations for auction rooms in Melbourne and Fremantle as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The auction rooms have been moved to the showfloor and elsewhere in the selling centre complex to ensure that the Government’s social distancing rules are adhered to. The auction rooms in Sydney will change location next week. Room breaks are more frequent, and lunchbreaks have been extended. Brokers, buyer, growers…

The latest data on Australian wool exports from the Australian Bureau of Statistics were a bit of a pleasant surprise. It shows that the volume of wool exported from Australia in June actually increased in June compared with June 2019. The increase was only small (+3%) and the export volume in June 2019 was the lowest June monthly total for many years, but, still, any increase in the current environment is very welcome. The reason that the volume of wool exports increased in June was due…

Are there any signs of a recovery in economic conditions as parts of the world resume some form of normality from the COVID-19 pandemic? One gauge of economic conditions is the Composite Leading Indicators (CLI) from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The Indicators are designed to provide early signals of turning points in business cycles. Wool prices have, to some extent at least, followed the trends in the CLI measure for China and the major advanced wool…

Wool prices fell by more in the past year than have prices for the other major apparel textile fibres. One result of this larger decline is that the wool price ratio against both cotton and synthetics has fallen back sharply in the past 3 months. Based on the Eastern Market Indicator (EMI). The drop is particularly marked compared with cotton prices, with the current ratio below the average level seen in ten years between 2010 and 2019. The ratio is at the lowest level since June 2014. It is,…

The fraught and disheartening 2019/20 season is drawing to a close. The season was a confidence-shattering disappointment after the two previous seasons in which prices rose sharply and hit record high levels, with the EMI averaging 1739 c/kg in 2017/18 and 1939 c/kg in 2018/19. Overall, the EMI fell by 605 c/kg from the close of the 2018/19 season to the close of the 2019/20 season, a 35% decline. It was also lower by 430 UScents/kg (-36%), 375 €cents/kg (-36%) and 2801 RMB/kg (-34%). All the…

The latest data on China’s trade in wool and wool products provides a rather gloomy picture of the trade situation for China’s wool textile industry, reflecting the extremely difficult demand situation given the COVID-19 pandemic. China’s exports of wool products (top, yarn, fabric and clothing) accounts for around half of the raw wool that China imports each year. Regrettably, China’s exports of wool products have slumped in the first four months of 2020. The decline has been most intense in…

All major processing countries recorded large year-on-year declines in the volume of wool exported to them by the major wool producing and exporting countries in April. Exports to China, the largest destination, saw the smallest decline, down by 31%. Exports to Italy were down by 70%, exports to Germany were 67% lower, exports to ‘other’ European countries were down by 79% and exports to the Czech Republic slumped by 87%. Exports to India fell by 85% while exports to ‘other’ countries (which…

The latest statistics from AWTA shows that the volume of wool tested in May slumped compared with a year ago. The number of bales tested was 28.5% lower than May 2018 and the weight of wool tested was 28.2% lower. That’s the largest year-on-year fall for any month since August 2003. The large drop will, in part, have been caused by the Covid-19 restrictions constraining shearing and a lack of immediacy for growers to get wool to market given the decline in wool prices (in contrast to May last…

The International Wool Textile Organisation 2020 Digital Congress was held on 21st to 23rd May. During the pre-recorded Market Intelligence session, Chris Wilcox (NCWSBA Executive Director) gave a presentation on the current situation and the outlook for the global wool industry. He reported the results from the annual survey of wool textile conditions from the IWTO, which are hugely negative for all sectors of the wool textile industry. Each sector, including garment making to weaving,…

Wool prices have fallen sharply in the past few months, particularly in US$ terms. For example, the EMI is down by 30% since January, while the 18 micron price guide has fallen by 27%. What has happened to the prices for other fibres, including wool from other countries? Have they been affected as much by COVID-19 and the lockdowns? Prices for other fibres have seen sharp falls in prices in the past few months, particularly the prices of man-made fibres. The oil-based synthetic fibres such as…

The NCWSBA Wool Broker Award for 2020 has been launched! This is the ninth year the Award has been offered. This year’s Award is again sponsored by AWTA (as the industry sponsor) and Sheep Central (as the media sponsor). The Award recognises excellence in wool broking by a younger member of our industry – be it client servicing, auctioneering, innovation or other aspects of wool broking. This year’s Award winner will be granted an all-expenses paid trip to Kyoto, Japan to attend the 2021 IWTO…

More than 200 hundred people will come together this week to celebrate the centenary of the National Council of Wool Selling Brokers of Australia. The centenary will be marked by the NCWSBA Centenary Auction to be held on Thursday, 20th February 2020, which will be followed by a cocktail reception featuring a charity auction in support of the Michael Manion Wool Industry Foundation. President of the NCWSBA, John Colley, said “The Australian wool industry is an iconic part of Australia’s history…

At its meeting on 22nd August, the NCWSBA Board decided unanimously to support the call for the mandatory use of anaesthetic/analgesia when surgical mulesing is conducted. As is now well known, WoolProducers Australia and some state farming organisations have adopted a policy of seeking the mandatory use of pain-relief for surgical mulesing. This is being supported by Sheep Producers Australia. The Board of NCWSBA considered the results of a survey of its members which showed that the…