KOCHI: Rubber Board has scaled down the production, stock and import statistics of natural rubber in June justifying the rubber industry’s doubts about scarce output this year which has forced it to depend more on imports .
The board has revised production in June 2013 to 38,000 tonne from 54,000 tonne estimated earlier. The total stock of rubber at the end of June has been brought down to 1.8 lakh tonne from 2.25 lakh tonne.
Dealers and the tyre industry have been arguing for a long time that the total stock would have been below 2 lakh tonne and pressing for a re-examination of production figures. It is after a long time that the natural rubber stock in the country is going below 2 lakh tonne.
Rubber Board sources said they revised the figures after getting additional information on production and added that such corrections had been done earlier too.
The board had called a meeting of various stakeholders last week in Kottayam to assess the situation. Concerned about the shrinking supply, the Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) had in early July said production in June could be in the range of 35,000 to 40,000 tonne.
The situation has prompted the tyre industry go for more imports taking advantage of weak global rubber prices as the decline in consumption has not been as severe as that of production . The price of block rubber SMR 20, which is imported by the tyre industry, was close to Rs 130 per kg on Monday, almost Rs 65 lower than the RSS-4 grade rubber in the domestic market.
This has made import viable despite rupee depreciation. Not surprisingly , Rubber Board had to raise the import figures for June by over 3,000 tonne to 22,840 tonne. Dealers say around 20,000-tonne imports could have happened in July.
“Taking into account the dynamics of the situation, there is a need to re-examine the performance of natural rubber every quarter instead of doing it on an annual basis,” points out Rajiv Budhraja, director general of ATMA. Dealers said natural production in July could be only slightly better than the previous month.
“Rains have continued in July but there were a few dry days which could have encouraged tapping,” said N Radhakrishnan , former president of Cochin Rubber Merchants Association. But it may not be near 68,000 tonne achieved in July 2012.
Source: India Times
