MARKET COMMENTARY
TOCOM rubber futures hit a fresh seven year low on Tuesday while SHFE rubber futures plunges more than three per cent on nagging worries over China economy and decline in crude oil and other industrial commodities.
Bearishness prevailed in local natural rubber market. RSS4 grade rubber in the spot market was quoted at its lowest level in more than six years. NMCE rubber futures tumbled as well.
MARKET NEWS
Thai government has ordered eight ministries to buy rubber to help struggling farmers.
China imported 500,000 tons of natural and synthetic rubber in November 2015, representing an increase of 51.5 per cent compared to the same month of 2014, according to statistics released by the General Administration of Customs of China.
The Thai government threatened on Thursday to cut rubber export quotas if traders did not play their part in stemming a slide in prices that has taken the value of the raw material to a seven-year low.
Thailand’s Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives will lend another 5 billion baht to rubber farmers seeking to do extra jobs during the ongoing price slump.
New plantings of rubber have been on a decline over the last three years and were down around 19% in 2014-15 (Apr-Mar), the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said.The total area under newly planted and replanted rubber trees was at 32,000 ha in 2014-15, down 11.1% from 36,000 ha a year ago.
[embeddoc url=”https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzrsaGiMYhEkMWdmS0RKZFNNd2M/preview” viewer=”drive”]Geofin Comtrade
