Rubber City, a rubber industrial estate being developed by the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand (IEAT), is teaming up with the country’s Labour Ministry to recruit skilled workers.
The IEAT will also collaborate with educational institutes to produce skilled vocational graduates over the long term.
IEAT governor Veerapong Chaiperm said it started developing a rubber industrial estate, known as Rubber City, in Songkhla a couple of years ago. The authority is now marketing to promote and attract more rubber-related industries to start investing in the estate.
“After doing research and talking to investors, we found their biggest concern is a workforce shortage in the estate because rubber-related industries still lack skilled labour, which is the crucial factor in their investment decisions,” said Veerapong.
The idea to develop a rubber city was floated a few years ago when Thailand, the world’s biggest rubber producer and exporter, faced an oversupply as a weak global economy dented demand, especially from the auto industry, which normally uses around 70% of the natural rubber supply.
The price of unsmoked rubber sheet (USS3), the raw material for export-grade smoked rubber sheet (RSS3), fell sharply from a high of 180 Baht per kilogramme a few years ago to as low as 30 Baht per kg, leading rubber farmers to stage sporadic protests demanding government price support schemes.
However, the current administration has a definite policy to end all price subsidy schemes that distort market prices. It promoted a rubber city in Songkhla, the centre of rubber trade in the South, where 80% of Thailand’s total annual rubber production of 4.2 million tonnes is produced.
Construction on the city started in 2015, covering 1,218 rai, which is expected to accommodate rubber cluster industries.
The rubber city is expected to start commercial operation this year if investors materialise. Investor hesitancy about a shortage of labour for rubber processing factories led the IEAT to ask the government for help.
To solve the problem in the short term, Veerapong said the IEAT would help recruit more labour into the region and the rubber city.
For the longer term, the IEAT plans to work with educational institutes, particularly vocational schools, to create new courses related to rubber cluster industries.
“These courses should help solve the skilled labour shortage not only in the rubber city, but also for the South’s entire rubber cluster,” he said.