Production of natural rubber (NR) in April 2015 was recorded at 35,850 tonnes, dropped by 24,661 tonnes (-40.8%) as compared to March 2015. Year-on-year, production recorded a decrease of 1.4 per cent. The biggest contributor of Malaysia’s NR is from the smallholding sector (92.6%), while the remaining is from the estate sector. Both of smallholding and estate sectors recorded a decrease in production at 41.6 per cent and 28.2 per cent for month-on-month respectively.

2.     EXPORTS

In April 2015, exports of NR was 49,059 tonnes. Month-on-month and year-on-year comparison shows a decrease of 12,108 tonnes (-19.8%) and 15,465 tonnes (-24.0%) respectively. From the total of NR exports, 91.3 per cent was contributed by the Standard Malaysian Rubber (S.M.R.) that comprised 50.8 per cent of S.M.R. 20.

The People’s Rep. of China was the main destination for NR exports (34.6%), followed by Germany (16.1%), U.S.A. (8.1%), Brazil (4.0%), Rep. of Korea (3.7%), Islamic Rep. of Iran (3.5%), Finland (3.1%), Portugal (2.6%) and Turkey (2.2%).

A total of 69,585 tonnes of NR was imported in April 2015. Month-on-month comparison shows the imports decreased by 8,538 tonnes (-10.9%), whereas year-on-year increased by 8,814 tonnes (+14.5%). The main type of NR imported for this month was Latex Concentrate (33.5%) and Standard Rubber (32.4%).

The NR mainly was imported from Thailand (46.1%) and Viet Nam (16.7%).

4.     DOMESTIC CONSUMPTION

Domestic consumption of NR in April 2015 was recorded at 39,909 tonnes, went up by 1,579 tonnes (+4.1%) from March 2015. Compared to the same month in 2014, the domestic consumption also increased by 7.4 per cent.

The largest industry that has consumed NR was the rubber gloves industry with a total of 29,658 tonnes (74.3%), followed by tyre & tubes (8.1%) and rubber thread (7.6%). The total consumption from these three industries covered more than half of the overall NR domestic consumption with a total of  35,947 tonnes (90.1%) .

The level of NR stocks held at the end of April 2015 was decreased by 14.8 per cent to 176,348 tonnes as compared to the level of stocks in March 2015. For year-on-year comparison, an increase of 19.1 per cent of NR stock was recorded. Rubber Processors was the biggest contributor in the NR stock (89.6%).

Data  for April 2015 is provisional.  The data will be updated based on the latest available figures and subsequently published in the May 2015 publication.