KOCHI: The rubber production in the country seems to be going from bad to worse in the peak harvest months. If the output slid by 15 % in October, it is 17% in November. At the same time the consumption has declined by 4%.
As per the data released by the Rubber Board on Friday, the production for November is 50,000 tonnes while the consumption is 82,000 tonnes. Despite a lower international price, the imports have declined by 14%.
For the period April to November, 2015, the production is down to 377,000 tonnes, 16% lower from a year ago. The consumption for the period is 662,160 tonnes, a fall of 2.5 %. The imports at 288,499 tonnes is down by 9% mainly because of higher import duty.
The production has been slumping for the last few months. Already, India has fallen to the fifth place in the global rubber output ranking after Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and China. It used to be above China. This year it may fall to sixth place behind Malaysia given the output figures.
Though Rubber Board has set an optimistic target of 6.8 lakh tonnes for the year 2015-16, the industry feels it could be below 6 lakh tonnes. The principal reason for the decline in the production is plunge in prices. The price of RSS-4 variety used by the tyre industry stood at Rs 103 per kg on Friday, the lowest in seven years.
With prices below the cost of production most of the growers have gone slow on tapping. Another impeding factor is that the unseasonal rains seem to have affected the yield adversely. Kerala produces 90% of the rubber in the country and of the producers, over 90% are small growers.
