Price stabilisation of natural rubber topped the agenda of an Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) meeting held in Hatyai City in Thailand.
Representatives from ANRPC’s 11 member countries – Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam – attended the meeting. Collectively, they account for about 92% of the global production of natural rubber.
Papua New Guinea was represented at the meeting by the PNG Rubber Board chairperson, Josephine Kenni, who called on all member states to take responsibility for the improvement of rubber prices.
She proposed that member countries look at down streaming the rubber industry and exploiting all possibilities to find industries using rubber as raw material.This and many more recommendations that were arrived at the meeting will be put to the executive committee for ratification for the respective governments to implement.
Kenni said, going forward, the PNG rubber industry will be regularized, improving Goods Manufacturing Practices (GMP) so that PNG rubber could get optimum prices.PNG was also represented at the meeting by LBL Holdings chief executive officer Anthony Amerasinghe and General Manager Gerad Amerasinghe.
The ANRPC 4th meeting of Expert Group on Natural Rubber (NR) Price Stabilisation was held from May 23 to 25, 2017.