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The first seven months of 2020 has witnessed an 8.9% year-over-year (y/y) fall in the world production and a 14.0% y/y fall in world consumption of natural rubber. Based on preliminary estimates available up to July 2020 from individual countries, and anticipated figures for the rest of the year, the world production in the year 2020 is anticipated at 13.149 million tons, down 4.9% from the previous year. This is slightly lower than the outlook for 2020 reported in July 2020 which was 13.195 million tons, down 4.5% from the previous year. The outlook for world consumption in 2020 is scaled down to 12.544 million tons or down 8.9 % from the previous year. The consumption outlook for 2020 as reported in July 2020 was 12.754 million tons, down 7.3% from the previous year.

The ANRPC reports that the Chinese economy grew by 3.2% in during the second quarter of 2020 (April to June) by beating the expectations after the 6.8% fall in the first quarter. By providing evidence of improving manufacturing activity, the manufacturing Purchasing Mangers’ Index (PMI) of China touched 51.1 in July. In the U.S., in a major initiative to revitalize the economy with expanded employment benefits ahead of the presidential elections to be held in November, a trillion-dollar coronavirus aid package is in the process of approval. Driven by stimulus policies and improving economic activities in China, the U.S., and other major consuming countries, the world consumption of natural rubber (NR) is anticipated to enter into positive territory by increasing 2.6% year-on-year growth during the three months from August to October 2020 after the 15.0% fall posted in the first half of the year, and 2.7% fall in July.

The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) is happy recently released its Natural Rubber Trends & Statistics June 2020. The Association reports that the key factor behind the abnormal fall in the prices of natural rubber (NR) since mid-January is the huge drop in the world demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The world consumption of NR dropped by 15.7% during H1 2020 (Jan-Jun 2020) as per the revised estimates. The Association claims that in China alone, the country accounting 40% of the world demand, the consumption fell by 20.1% during H1 2020.

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.

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.

The association reports that the world consumption of NR fell 19.6%, year-over-year, during the first quarter of 2020, as per the preliminary estimates and forecasts of individual countries. The consumption anticipated during the second quarter is down 1.5% compared with the same quarter a year ago. At the same time, the world production of NR increased by 1.8%, year-over-year, during the first quarter of 2020, according to preliminary estimates and forecasts of individual countries. The production anticipated during the second quarter is up 3.6% compared with the same quarter a year ago.

The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) recently released a report, which sheds light on the current situation and provides forecast for natural rubber (NR) markets. The association reports that the world produced 13.804 million tons of natural rubber in 2019, 1.4% down compared to the annual production volume in 2018, as per the updated estimates available from individual NR producing countries. Whereas the production was anticipated to increase 2.7% to 14.177 million tons in 2020, according to the revised outlook, it witnessed an annualized 5.2% drop in world production during the first two month of the year.

According to the recent press release by the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC), after assuming the position as the Secretary-General on 1 December 2019, one of Mr. Premadasa’s priorities has been to ensure that ANRPC’s publication “Natural Rubber Trends & Statistics” reaches the users in the shortest time along with insightful analytical observations and early signals of the emerging trends. As a major step in the efforts to achieve this, ANRPC is now releasing the backlogs from August to December 2019 as a single issue.

The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) reported on 18 October that the global demand for natural rubber (NR) has seen 0.8 percent growth reaching almost 7 million tons, whereas its supply dropped over 8 percent to some 5.8 million tons during the first six months of this year. NR market, however, is still pressured by US-China trade row and unstable situation in Middle East. This can further affect natural rubber trends. There have been speculations on the market that the Fed would have cut rates that would particularly target equity sector. Nonetheless, the Fed kept its rate unchanged. The factor of the US-China trade war forced traders to maintain conservative trading positions.