ANRPC revises up rubber demand outlook

Kuala Lumpur – The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) has revised up its estimates for global NR consumption outlook amid ongoing challenges in the market.

The association expects demand for natural rubber to “pick up the recovery momentum” and increase by 2.2% year-on-year to 14.639 million tonnes this year, amid “the uncertainties in health care crisis and geopolitical conflicts during this year.”

The growth figure, published in late May, is slightly higher than ANRPC’s previous estimate in March, which forecast a 1.2% growth to 14.232 million tonnes.

By contrast, the association expects a slightly slower production growth, lowering its estimate to 1.8% year-on-year growth to 14.179 million tonnes, from 14.292 million tonnes estimated the month before.

The revision, said ANRPC in its April NR trend report, is resulted from updates made by Indonesia which saw production fall from 263,000 tonnes in March to 257,000 tonnes in April.

Over the month of April, the global production of natural rubber slowly picked and rose from 904,000 tonnes recorded in March to 941,000 tonnes.

Tapping activities, ANRPC said, may be expected to resume in the coming weeks subject to individual profile of each plantation and its climate condition from the seasonal leaf falling.

Demand in April, meanwhile, dropped marginally by 65,000 tonnes to 1.210 million tonnes as compared to 1.275 million tonnes recorded in March.

Here, the association said that the global economic recovery remains optimistic, but the on-going global uncertainties caused by geopolitical instability and cities lockdown in China will pose challenges for the industry.