THE Australian physical wool market’s fifth consecutive week of price falls was emulated by quieter sales activity in the online Wooltrade marketplace last week.

Wooltrade sold 16 bales over the week as the AWEX EMI closed at 1195 cents, the first time since the end of April 2015 that the market has dropped below the 1200c mark.

Wooltrade market operations officer Tom Rookyard said the price fall led to a high pass-in rate at the physical auctions and this flowed onto the online marketplace at Wooltrade.com.au.

A 1-bale line of 18.5 micron fleece wool sold for 1318c/kg clean, or 833c/kg greasy, on Wooltrade last week. The line yielded 63.2 percent, with a mean staple length of 79mm, tensile strength of 40 Newtons/kilotex and a vegetable matter content of 0.5pc.

The top crossbred line was a four-bale lot of 24.2 micron fleece that sold for 1105c/kg clean, or 840c/kg greasy. The line had a yield of 76pc and 0.1pc VM.

TPP might encourage Pacific countries

“Looking forward, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade appears to not have a direct impact on the Australian wool industry due to China not participating in the deal,” Mr Rookyard said.

But he said is Pacific countries such as Vietnam become more involved in wool processing or should machinery be moved from China to Vietnam, this would benefit Australian wool growers.

“Vietnam has been looked upon as a potential new area where wool processing could be introduced, for processing and re-export to consuming countries.”

Mr Rookyard said the strong supply of good wool continues across Australia this week.

“Buyers will once again be given a plethora of choice this week with over 47,000 bales up for auction, including a designated superfine sale in Sydney.

“Once again, if price levels can be maintained it could be a seen positive signal.”

Click here for last week’s Wooltrade Top Prices Summary.

Source: Wooltrade