NZ wool auction volumes set to climb 83% next week

NZ wool auction volumes set to climb 83% next week

By Tina Morrison

May 15 (BusinessDesk) - New Zealand wool auction volumes are set to increase 83 percent next week as farmers who had been holding out for better prices put their bales on the market.

Some 10,000 bales of wool are scheduled to be offered at next week’s South Island auction, up from 5,469 bales at this week's auction in the North Island yesterday and 6,346 bales on offer in the South Island last week, according to AgriHQ.

"This increase is due to farmers who had previously held back, coming forward as a result of recent improvements in local prices," said AgriHQ analyst Emma Dent.

Some 98 percent of the wool offered at auction was sold yesterday, she said.

The price for clean 35-micron wool, a benchmark for crossbred wool used for carpets and accounting for the majority of New Zealand's production, fetched $5.80 per kilogram at auction yesterday, unchanged from last week but 9 percent higher than year earlier levels, Dent said.

Meanwhile, lamb wool slipped to 6.65/kg from last week's four-year high of $6.80/kg, and is 32 percent higher than its auction price this time last year, she said.

Wool is New Zealand's 13th largest commodity export.

(BusinessDesk)

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