ANRPC revises up rubber supply and demand forecasts

Kuala Lumpur – The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) has revised up forecast for natural rubber (NR) production and demand for the full year, on higher estimates particularly from Vietnam.

In a joint September and October NR report 5 Nov, the organisation said it estimated the global NR production to reach 14.927 million tonnes this year, 2.3% up from 2022.

The improved outlook was linked to adjustments in preliminary production estimates from ANRPC members, notably Vietnam and China.

Earlier in August, ANRPC revised down its full-year estimate to 14.880 million tonnes, on lower estimates of 366,000 tonnes and 73,000 tonnes from Malaysia and Sri Lanka respectively.

In its latest report, however, ANRPC said Vietnam is expected to increase NR output from 1.342 million tonnes reported in August issue to 1.395 million tonnes.

China, meanwhile, has adjusted its production outlook due to “adverse weather conditions” affecting the rubber producing provinces.

The country’s new projection stands at 846,000 tonnes, down 6,000 tonnes from previous estimate in August.

In terms of demand, ANPRC said its figures had undergone “a slight revision”, resulting in a marginal increase to 15.575 million tonnes, up 0.2% from last year and downs slightly from the 15,567 million tonne figure reported in August.

The revision, said ANRPC, primarily arises from adjustments made to the annual demand figures of China and Vietnam.

According to ANRPC, while September saw a notable 4.1% year-on-year increase in global NR demand to 1.361 million tonnes, October experienced a marginal fall of 0.6% to 1.353 million tonnes.

This was partly due to a drop in the Chinese purchasing manager index (PMI) in the manufacturing industry, which fell under the significant threshold of 50 to 49.5 in October.