World consumption of natural rubber increased by 5.2%, year-on-year, to 8.158 million tonnes during the seven months ended July, 2018. During this period, the world production of NR rose 3.7%, year-over-year, to 7.372 million tonnes. These figures reveal a shortfall in production at 786,000 tonnes during the first seven months of 2018, says Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) in its latest Natural Rubber Trends and Statistics.
Rubber producing regions across countries have witnessed unusually severe monsoon, floods, and typhoon during July and August. Caused by unfavourable weather conditions and unattractive prices, the production fell 17.6% in Vietnam, 16.5% in Malaysia, 8.5% in India and 10.3% in Sri Lanka during the period from January to July 2018 compared to the same period in the previous year.
NR exports
Total exports of NR from ANRPC members fell 7.9%, year-on-year, to 5.149 million tonnes during the first seven months of 2018.
The negative growth in exports was attributed to the commitment from Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia through the initiative for curtailing exports under International Tripartite Rubber Consortium (ITRC).
Most NR producing countries, except Vietnam and Cambodia, reported fall in NR exports during the period. Thailand reported the highest decline in NR exports by -18.1% to 1.73 millin tonnes exports, while Indonesia’s exports fell by -3.3% to 1.82 million tonnes and Malaysia’s exports declined by -3.2% to 677,000 tonnes.
NR imports
The ANRPC member-countries imported 4.343 million tonnes of NR during first seven months of 2018, up 8.4% from the same period a year ago. India reported the highest rise in NR imports by 51.3 % to 296,000 tonnes during the period.
NR imports by many other countries also went up during the period–Malaysia by 7.7% to 624,000 tonnes, China by 3.4% to 2.97 million tonnes and Vietnam by 36% to 331,000 tonnes.
