ZINC PRODUCERS APPROACH EC ON VOLUNTARY CLOSURES

  A number of individual zinc producing
  companies have approached the European Commission to sound out
  its reaction to a possible industry plan for a voluntary
  reduction of smelting capacity, Commission sources said.
      The companies have been told that the Commission could not
  judge whether a plan would be acceptable under European
  Community, EC, competition rules until it had full details,
  they said.
      In 1983, the industry drew up a plan envisaging the loss of
  about 130,000 tonnes of annual capacity, or about 10 pct of the
  total.
      However, the industry did not proceed with this plan as
  zinc market conditions improved in 1984, the sources noted.
      They said the companies which approached the Commission
  recently -- and which they did not name -- appeared to envisage
  a loss of productive capacity similar to that proposed in 1983.
  

