Tightened measures at border checkpoints along the Cambodian border with Vietnam, to prevent the spread of COVID-19, has caused rubber exports to plummet and “will continue to affect rubber exports as long as restrictions remain in place,” said local exporter Heng Sreng.
Sreng is the General Manager of Long Sreng International which owns the Boeung Ket Rubber Plantation in Kampong Cham province, Cambodia. Sreng claimed that his company exported a meagre amount of rubber in the first three months of the year due to the restrictions – only 50 tonnes of rubber was exported to the international market, down from the year-ago figures of between 250 and 300 tonnes.
Similarly, Men Sopheak, the owner and director of Sopheak Nika Investment Agro-Industrial Plants, a leading rubber grower and exporter that employs nearly 5,000 workers, said that the outbreak and subsequent restrictions brought exports to nil last month. However, the company did export about 1,000 tonnes of rubber to the Chinese market in the first two months of 2020, a small drop from the same period last year, he added.
Rubber prices have dropped from US$ 1,300 to US$ 1,100 per tonne and is expected to continue to decline until the end of the year: “We anticipate the price of rubber could be adversely affected by the COVID-19 disease as it hammers economies in rubber processors such as China, the US and Europe. Demand for rubber products and rubber processing needs has already slowed down.
“Given the global economic crisis, I think the price will not improve in the next three to four months so it will affect the company’s revenue and profit due to lower market prices and a drop in daily sales,” said Sopheak.