The strong pound and the crisis in the South East Asian economies has crippled the marketing of wool from the Bradford-based British Wool Marketing Board, its chairman said today.

Alun Evans, who heads the global organisation, said 60 per cent of the UK wool clip was exported and, despite heavy marketing, it had been a disappointing year.

He said: "It's been a difficult year for all areas of farming with the strength of Sterling decimating export markets and allowing imports to undermine prices at home."

The BWMB buys wool from farmers and promotes it around the world. Mr Evans said last year farmers had produced more wool than in the previous year but, because of difficult trading conditions, they were getting a reduced return for their efforts.

"In the last year, Sterling has doubled against most of the currencies in which British Wool is traded and produced a sustained differential between the price of our wool and comparative imported wools," he added.

The Board, based at Oak Mills, Clayton, sold 43.6 million kilograms of wool worth £40.03 million compared with 44.9 million kilograms of wool worth £46.7 million last time.

The biggest wool sales were with the carpet industry which had been heavily targetted by the organisation He said: "Forecasting future market trends is impossible, but following a 14 per cent reduction in comparative New Zealand wools in June and July, the outlook remains very depressed"

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