The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) released April issue of its Natural Rubber Trends & Statistics. Below we cite the ANRPC’s publication and share views of the organization on the current trends on natural rubber markets, which very much affect prices for recycled rubber materials and goods.

ANRPC writes that while the Covid-19 pandemic has put the entire world in a standstill with the lockdowns, movement controls, social distancing practices and widespread closures implemented by governments around the world, they have impacted the natural rubber industry in multiple ways. In this context, ANRPC has made a preliminary assessment of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the production, primary processing, trading and consumption of NR in its member countries. The key observations reported by member governments are briefly presented in the April issue of ANRPC’s Natural Rubber Trends and Statistics.

According to the ANRPC, its outlook on world production and consumption of NR has been revised down in light of observations made from the preliminary assessment of the impact of the pandemic. The outlook on world production in 2020 is revised down to 13.433 million tons, down 2.3% from the previous year. The revised figure is 679,000 tons lower compared to the outlook presented a month ago which was 14.112 million tons at 2.2% growth.

ANRPC’s outlook on world consumption in 2020 is revised down to 13.016 million tons which is down 5.1% from the previous year. The revised figure is 516,000 tons lower compared to the outlook anticipated a month ago which was 13.532 million tons at -1.5% growth. The pandemic has generated additional demand for NR in the manufacturing of gloves and other rubber-based healthcare sanitary and products, especially in Malaysia and Thailand, and this is helping the consumption sector in partly offsetting the fall in the demand for NR from automotive tire manufacturing sector.

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