Rubber price rebound prompts some farmers to restart production
Myanmar rubber farmers and producers battered by months of low prices are enjoying some respite following a recovery in global markets last year. With weak local demand Myanmar’s rubber industry is at the mercy of world markets, and low prices throughout 2015 and much of 2016 led many of the country’s rubber producers to shut down operations. But global markets started to recover last year. In January 2016, a tonne of RSS 3, or ribbed smoked sheet 3, sold for $1260 on the Bangkok commodity exchange. By the end of 2016 the price had risen to $2230 per tonne. “World prices have almost doubled since October 2015 because of lower production among southeast Asian countries, due to heavy rainfall making it hard to harvest latex from rubber trees, and the increased production of motor vehicles in China and Japan,” said U Khaing Myint, secretary general of the Myanmar Rubber Planters & Producers Association.
