By Sharifah Pirdaus Syed Ali
KUALA LUMPUR — The Malaysian rubber market is expected to see mixed trading next week, tracking the performance of regional futures markets and fluctuation in crude oil prices, dealers said.
The Malaysian rubber market also saw mixed trading this week, taking cue from the performance of the regional futures market, the Tokyo Commodity Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchange, as well as the movements in crude oil prices.
Natural rubber (NR) prices has recovered gradually in June while a supply deficit remained in place, he said, citing the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) report.
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The deficit in world supply of NR in June was close to 700,000 tonnes. World production for the first half of this year was 5.73 million tonnes, up 5.8 per cent from 5.42 million tonnes in the first half of 2016 against world demand of 6.42 million tonnes for the same period, up 0.3 per cent from 6.4 million tonnes in the first half of 2016, the report said.
He said the ANRPC also revised its outlook for world supply of natural rubber in 2017 to 12.80 million tonnes, while global demand was anticipated at 12.9 million tonnes.
The market is expected to improve in the near-term in line with the positive outlook of the world’s NR supply and demand, as well as improving China’s economy and oil prices,” he said.
For the week just ended, rubber prices was mixed in line with the trend on TOCOM and SHFE.
It was traded lower for the first two days, rebounded on Wednesday before remaining mixed towards the weekend.
On a Friday-to-Friday basis, the Malaysian Rubber Board’s official physical price for tyre-grade SMR 20 gained two sen to 623.5 sen a kg from 621.5 sen a kg, and latex-in-bulk decreased 21.5 sen to 499 sen a kg from 520.5 sen a kg.
The 5 pm closing price for tyre-grade SMR 20 was 8.0 sen higher at 637.5 sen a kg from 629.5 sen a kg, but latex-in-bulk slipped 6.0 sen to 498 sen a kg from 504 sen a kg.
