Rubber exports predicted to fall

Rubber exports predicted to fall

The nation's rubber industry will ship an estimated 1 million tonne of products abroad by the end of the year, earning US$1.8 billion to $2 billion in the process.

According to the Department of Processing and Trade of Agricultural, Forestry, and Fishery Products and Salt Production, these exports, however, would represent a year-on-year fall of 10 per cent in volume and 23 to 30 per cent in value due to a drop in the global demand. Meanwhile, the global supply of rubber has significantly increased as countries have expanded their cultivation areas in response to the 2012 period of high rubber prices. That has also contributed to the fall in export prices since the beginning of this year.

Head of the department Nguyen Trong Thua predicted that rubber prices would face a downward trend in the long term. Thus, competition between exporting countries would increase and importers would prefer rubber with stable quality.

Currently, the price of Vietnamese rubber is much lower than that of other exporting countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia due to its low quality.

Up to 548,000 tonnes of rubber were exported over the past eight months, bringing the country $989 million in revenue. This was a fall of 9.8 per cent in volume and 31.9 per cent in value year on year.

China and Malaysia continue to be the two biggest consumers of Viet Nam's rubber. However, China's imports decreased by 21 per cent in volume and 41 per cent in value, while Malaysia's imports fell by 14 per cent and 40 per cent in volume and value respectively.

Meanwhile, the domestic rubber production for 2014 was forecast to reach 980,000 tonnes, up by 3.2 per cent year on year.

At a recent conference on rubber production, experts said that it was time to promote restructuring of the rubber industry in order to develop the sector in a sustainable manner as well as to increase the export value. 

bizhub