ANRPC Revises Global Rubber Consumption, Production Outlook

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 14 (Bernama) -- The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) has revised global consumption for natural rubber (NR) outlook to 12.61 million tonnes this year, an 8.4 per cent fall from 2019. In view of economic activity revival across countries and a faster-than-expected economic recovery in China, ANRPC anticipated consumption to perform relatively better during the remaining four months of the year, contracting only by 1.8 per cent, year-over-year during the period. The outlook for 2020 reported a month ago was 12.54 million tonnes by representing an 8.9 per cent fall from the previous year, the association said in its Natural Rubber Trends and Statistics for September 2020, released Wednesday. ANRPC has also revised global production for 2020 at 12.90 million tonnes, a 6.8 per cent fall from last year. “This revised outlook is 1.9 percentage points lower than the outlook reported a month ago which was 13.15 million tonnes by representing a 4.9 per cent fall,” it said. It anticipates a 3.8 per cent decline in the remaining four months of this year after the production for the first eight months of the year fell 8.7 per cent, year-on-year to 7.78 million tonnes. On NR prices, ANRPC said prices further improved during September 2020, at varying degrees across different grades and different physical markets. Among the various grades and markets, RSS3 grade at FOB Bangkok glared during September 2020 by averaging at 13.8 per cent above the average it registered in August 2020. Compared to the average prices in August 2020, the average prices during September 2020 were up 5.9 per cent for STR20 at FOB Bangkok, 4.7 per cent for SMR20 at FOB Kuala Lumpur, 3.5 per cent for RSS4 at Kottayam local market in India, and 4.6 per cent for latex-in-bulk at Kuala Lumpur local market. -- BERNAMA