Nobody would be ignored

Indian rubber growers have demanded, among other things, a temporary suspension of imports for a period of six months and that import duty on natural rubber be hiked to 30% or `.40 a kg, whichever was higher against the current 20% or `.30 a kg, whichever was lower, to discourage manufacturing industry. While rubber goods manufacturing industry represented by Automotive Tyre Manufacturers’ Association, argued that the import duty rate was the highest in the world.

Kerala Finance Minister K.M. Mani appealed to the Union Government to use money from the Price Stabilisation Fund to support growers who are reeling under a steep fall in the price of natural rubber. He claimed that only `.14 crore of the total of `.1,000 crore available under the Fund had been utilised. He suggested that the Union Government double the current incentive of `.25,000 per hectare to lure more farmers into taking replanting rubber.

Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman assured stakeholders that a decision on the crisis now gripping rubber growers would be taken without favouritism. Nobody would be ignored and everyone would be taken on board while arriving at a decision in a time-bound manner.

Today, the benchmark RSS4 grade rubber closed at `.121 a kg at Kottayam, while RSS3 grade closed at `.96 a kg at Bangkok and Malaysian SMR20 closed at `.88.79 a kg. On National Multi Commodity Exchange October 2014 futures closed at `.122.80 a kg, November at `.121.43, December at `.120.83 and January 2015 at `.120.52 a kg. On Tokyo Commodity Exchange, October 2014 futures series closed at ¥171.7 a kg, November at ¥175.6, December at ¥178.5, January 2015 at ¥182.5, February at ¥184.4 and the contract for delivery in March 2015 closed at ¥185.4 a kg.

Read lot more in Rubber4U – 1st October 2014 issue

For 2014-15 Rubber Forecast, http://rubber4u.com/Public/RForecast.pdf