Scrap rubber back in demand with increase in rubber price

POKOK SENA: The increase in the price of rubber has brought relief to smallholders, as well as licensed rubber buyers.

Checks at the rubber buying centre in Kampung Bendang Mukim Lesong here found the owner, Mohd Saidi Saad, 46, busy buying scrap rubber from smallholders who were there since early morning.

Saidi said since he operated the business 20 years ago, the current increase in rubber price was the second after 2010, when it went up to RM7.00 per kilogramme.

Following the price increase, smallholders started selling scrap rubber again with the amount increasing by two- folds for this month.

Prior to this, his purchase of scrap rubber was about three to four tonnes a week, but with the increase in rubber price of up to RM4.80 per kilogramme now, it has gone up to seven to eight tonnes, he added.

“Prior to this, the rubber plantations were abandoned, but now that the price of rubber has increased, many are back tapping rubber trees.

“I believe if the price continues to increase, there will be government employees coming back to tap the rubber trees in their plantations, as well as set up camp to prevent theft of their scrap rubber,” he said when met by Bernama.

Saidi said he had also engaged a few youngsters to work for him by bringing the scrap rubber from plantations to his purchasing centre.

“Some rubber tappers do not have transport, and also the elderly ones, they are not able to carry the heavy weight of the scrap rubber, so I pay the teenagers to carry them to the centre,” he added.

Meanwhile, a smallholder, Omar Manaf, 50, from Kampung Budi here, said the increase in the price of rubber had helped to ease his financial burden.

Prior to the price increase, he said, he was only paid RM200 a week for 100 kilogramme of scrap rubber.

Yesterday, the price was RM400, he added. — Bernama