Rubber exports increase by 5.3 pct in September to 62,332 tonnes

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s natural rubber (NR) exports rose 5.3 per cent to 62,332 tonnes in September 2021 compared to 59,172 tonnes in August 2021, said the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).

In a statement yesterday, chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said China continued to dominate as the largest importer of natural rubber with 46.0 per cent of total exports in September 2021, followed by the United States (13.1 per cent), Germany (4.3 per cent), Pakistan (2.5 per cent), and Finland (2.1 per cent).

“The performance at the national level was contributed by natural rubber-based products such as gloves, tyres, tubes, rubber threads and condoms.

“Gloves were the main export of rubber-based products with a value of RM3.1 billion in September 2021, a decrease of 2.2 per cent as compared to

August 2021 at RM3.8 billion,” he said.

However, Mohd Uzir said NR production declined by 4.1 per cent to 41,180 tonnes in September 2021 compared to 42,942 tonnes in the previous month.

Year-on-year (y-o-y) comparison also showed a decrease of 10.8 per cent against 46,187 tonnes in the same month of the preceding year.

He said the smallholdings sector was the main contributor to NR production at 91.0 per cent, while the estate sector accounted for 9.0 per cent of total production in September 2021.

Meanwhile, NR stocks increased 2.0 per cent in September 2021 to 292,271 tonnes compared with 286,653 tonnes in August 2021, he said.

He added that the rubber processing factory contributed 92.0 per cent of the stocks in September 2021 followed by rubber consumers factory (7.9 per cent) and rubber estates (0.1 per cent).

The average monthly price of latex concentrate recorded a decrease of 4.8 per cent month-on-month (m-o-m) with September 2021 at 497.24 sen per kilogramme (kg) against August 2021 at 522.13 sen per kg.

“A similar trend is also observed for all Standard Malaysian Rubber (SMR) which decreased between 4.8 and 6.8 per cent,” he said.

He also noted that the performance of Malaysia’s NR production in the first nine months of 2021 decreased by 4.8 per cent as compared to the same period in 2020 (Jan-Sept 2021: 354,359 tonnes, Jan-Sept 2020: 372,381 tonnes).

Meanwhile, production rose by 47.5 per cent to 132,732 tonnes in the third quarter of 2021 against 89,985 tonnes in the second quarter of 2021, he added.