Rubber price rebounds to K1,750 per pound after two-week fall

The price of rubber bounced back to around K1,750 per pound in Mon State’s rubber market after a two-week decline.
The prices touched a low of K1,590 per pound of Ribbed Smoked Sheet Local 3 and K1,610 for sun-dried rubber at the end of September.
The prevailing prices moved up to K1,730 per pound for sundried rubber and K1,750 for RSS Local 3. The figures showed a two-week increase of K150 per pound.
Rubber tapping business halted for a while in the monsoon season and resumed in mid-September at the opening prices of K1,770 per pound of Ribbed Smoked Sheet Local 3 and K1,750 for sun-dried rubber. This being so, the current market value has not reached the opening prices of the season.
Global demand for rubber, rubber production in the Southeast Asian nations and the market supply are contributing factors to Myanmar’s rubber prices.
The rubber price in Mon State, a major rubber production state in Myanmar, is related to those factors as well, the traders elaborated.
Myanmar’s annual rubber production is estimated at some 300,000 tonnes. Seventy per cent of rubber produced in Myanmar goes to China. It is also shipped to Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Viet Nam, the Republic of Korea, India, Japan, and other countries.
The association aims to achieve rubber exports of 300,000 tonnes in the current 2023-2024 financial year beginning 1 April.
The rubber production in the last FY 2022-2023 reached over 360,000 tonnes, more than 200,000 tonnes of which were shipped to foreign trade partners.
Rubber is commonly produced in Mon and Kayin states and Taninthayi, Bago, and Yangon regions in Myanmar. As per 2018-2019 rubber season data, there are over 1.628 million acres of rubber plantations in Myanmar, with Mon State accounting for 497,153 acres, followed by Taninthayi Region with 348,344 acres and Kayin State with 270,760 acres.
Myanmar bagged more than US$449 million in revenue in rubber exports in the 2020-2021 FY. — NN/EM