Due to substantial decline in global natural rubber prices, the world’s natural rubber output fell by 1.5% from a year earlier to 12.07 million tons in 2014. Over the same period, global consumption of natural rubber saw a year-on-year growth of 6.8% to 12.16 million tons, destocking 89 kt, largely driven by continuous expansion of global tyre industry, says a new report by ReportBuyer.
Global natural rubber consumer markets are primarily concentrated in China, India, Europe, Japan, etc. China is the world’s largest consumer of natural rubber, guzzling 4,760 kt in 2014, representing a year-on-year rise of 13.1%, making up 39.1% of the world’s total consumption. Pulled by the demand from automobile and tyre industries in China, natural rubber consumption will continue to grow and is expected to reach 6,791 kt by 2018.
However, limited by unfavorable weather conditions, the output of natural rubber in China is rather low, only 857 kt in 2014, or 7.1% of the global total. In order to meet supply-demand gap, China has to import a large amount of natural rubber from Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, with imports reaching 2,610 kt in 2014, 54.8% of total consumption that year.
At present, Sri Trang Agro-Industry Plc., Von Bundit and Thai Hua Rubber are major global natural rubber producers. They have, by virtue of their resource advantages, continued to boost planting and production capacity.
Meanwhile, major Chinese natural rubber producers, including Sinochem International, Guangdong Guangken Rubber Group and China Hainan Rubber Industry Group, are actively developing new products and speeding up the implementation of “going out” strategy.