JOHOR BAHARU, Oct 11 (Bernama) — The Malaysian Rubber Board (Licensing and Permit) Regulations 2014 are not meant to prevent rubber buyers from operating their business but to ensure the nation’s rubbber industry continues to be an important contributor to the economy, says Deputy Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Noriah Kasnon.
“The new reglations introduce a supervisory element, from rubber production at the smallholder stage to the trader right to the processing stage and exporters,” she said at the state-level launch of the Regulations here Saturday.
She said a quality assurance programme that ensures rubber is free of contaminants would bring better prices to smallholders as processors would have to spend less on removing the contaminants.
Under the Regulations, smallholders need a Rubber Transaction Authority Permit to sell rubber to licensed rubber buyers.
Some 114,000 of the 442,000 smallholders have registered for the permit, introduced in 2010 to stem the tide of rubber thefts, she said.
On the 2015 Budget tabled by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak yesterday, she said it shows the government’s concern for the country’s rubber smallholders.
Najib announced a RM100 million allocation for the Malaysian Rubber Board to implement a price regulation mechanism at the farm level as well as to provide soft loans of RM6.4 million as working capital, enabling 64 smallholder cooperatives to buy rubber directly from rubber smallholders nationwide.
— BERNAMA
