Australia : SARS Blamed For Low Wool Price

Traders are blaming SARS for the continuous drop in wool prices from past few months.

Clean average fleece wool has dropped to about 870 cents a kilogram, the lowest it has been since its historic peak in January when it reached 1,290 cents.

Des Sheedy, the managing director of WA wool broker Primaries, says while the rising Australian dollar is not good for the price, the biggest impact has been the drop in sales to China because of SARS.

He says China uses Australian wool for their products, but their products are not selling.

"The Chinese, who are our major user of wool, they export a lot of these semi-processed or finished product into Europe, America, the rest of South-East Asia, Japan etcetera, and there's been concerns as to...'can I catch SARS by taking product out of China?'" he said.