The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC), in line with its recent outlook, says that the natural rubber (NR) prices started recovering since the last week of April driven by the positive sentiment due to the relaxation of the COVID-19 containment measures and lockdowns, reopening of economic activities across countries, positive developments in crude oil market, and a substantial contraction in the global production of NR. The recovery is likely to continue, albeit at a slow pace and subject to a set of risk factors.

According to the most up-to-date information gathered from the producing countries, ANRPC has further scaled down the outlook on world production of NR. As per the revised outlook, the world production is expected to fall by 4.7% to 13.130 million tons during 2020. The revised outlook is 303,000 tons lower than the outlook reported through the April issue of the ANRPC’s publication. The outlook on world consumption is scaled down further, largely based on the revisions made by India and Indonesia. Based on the revised outlook, the world consumption in 2020 is expected to fall 6.0% to 12.904 million tons. These figures include estimates and forecasts for the non-ANRPC countries as well.

While the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic put the world rubber industry into one of the worst crises in the past few decades and pushed the stakeholders in the whole value-chain into chaos and hopelessness, ANRPC has made it a point to gather the grassroots level information of all developments and provide the most updated information to the market. It is during the uncertain times that trusted facts assume greater value, the Association pinpoints.

Article by ANRPC.