Rubber Board revises production target for 2019-20

Kochi: Rubber Board has revised downwards the production, consumption and import target for the current fiscal year for natural rubber keeping in mind the uncertainties in the global economy.

The projection for production in 2019-20 has been revised to 730,000 tonnes, a decrease of 20000 tonnes from the earlier target. The new consumption figure for the year is 1140,000 tonnes against earlier 1270,000 tonnes. Considering the decline in import, the target for the year has been revised downwards by 85,000 tonnes to 415,000 tonnes.

Speaking at the 179th meeting of Rubber Board at Kottayam, chairman Sawar Dhanania said the outlook at present is not that much optimistic for both rubber producing and consuming sectors,

The world economy is passing through a difficult time and the economic horizon is overcast with uncertainties adversely affecting investor sentiments and consumer confidence. This would have its downbeat effect on all economic and industrial sectors, according to him.

"There could be volatility in natural rubber (NR) market responding to weather conditions, currency movements, oil price variations, speculative factors etc. However, the expectation that developing and emerging economies would recover and would be in a sustained growth path is a consoling factor, ‘’ he said.

The board executive director K N Raghavan said NR production during April - September 2019 was 308,000 tonnes with an increase of 11.2% as compared with the same period last year. He attributed the improvement in production to the efforts taken by the board to bring more untapped areas into tapping through adoption of holdings and rainguarding. So far, 2800 hectares of untapped area have been brought under tapping through adoption. Total area rainguarded during 2019-20 comes to 2.5 lakh ha with an increase of 40,000 ha compared to last year.

Consumption of NR decreased during April- September 2019 by 7.6% year-on-year to 567,120 tonnes. Import of NR decreased during April-September 2019 by 13.9% from same period last year to 257, 943 tonnes.