Worries over slowdown but prices on upward trend

Thailand will cut rubber exports by 126,240 tonnes for four months from 20th May to shore up natural rubber prices. Thailand will proceed as agreed by International Tripartite Rubber Council and will assess results every month.

The three countries (Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia) account for about 70% of the world's natural rubber production and decided for export cutbacks of 240,000 metric tonnes collectively to support prices. Besides curbing exports, the group also agreed to try to significantly ramp up the domestic use of rubber in each of the three producers through developments such as rubberised roads. 

The benchmark RSS4 grade rubber closed at `.137 a kg at Kottayam, while RSS3 grade closed at `.125.65 a kg at Bangkok and Malaysian SMR20 closed at `.106.75 a kg. On ICEX, June 2019, the futures closed at `.138.06 a kg, July at `.139.98, August at `.134.69, September at `.136.04, October at `.137.39 and November closed at `.138.76 a kg. Tokyo Commodity Exchange May 2019 futures series closed at ¥201.8 a kg, June at ¥202.7, July at ¥202.7, August at ¥199.4, September at ¥194.1 and the contract for delivery in October 2019 closed at ¥192.8 a kg.

To read Rubber4U – 15th May 2019 issue: http://rubber4u.com/Public/Abcd.pdf

For National Rubber Policy: http://rubber4u.com/Public/NRP2019.pdf