Rubber price dips to approximately K1,600 per pound

The price of rubber has fallen again to around K1,600 per pound in Mon State’s rubber market.
Rubber tapping business halted for a while in the monsoon season and resumed in mid-September at the opening prices of K1,770 per pound of Ribbed Smoked Sheet Local 3 and K1,750 for sun-dried rubber.
The prevailing prices slid to K1,590 per pound for sundried rubber and K1,610 for RSS Local 3. The figures showed a decrease of K160 per pound.
Global demand for rubber, rubber production of the Southeast Asian nations and the market supply are contributing factors to Myanmar’s rubber prices.
The rubber price in Mon State, a major rubber production state in Myanmar, is related to those factors as well, the traders elaborated.
Myanmar’s annual rubber production is estimated at 300,000 tonnes. Seventy per cent of rubber produced in Myanmar goes to China. It is also shipped to Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Viet Nam, the Republic of Korea, India, Japan, and other countries.
The association aims to achieve rubber exports of 300,000 tonnes in the current 2023-2024 financial year beginning 1 April.
The rubber production in the last FY 2022-2023 reached over 360,000 tonnes and more than 200,000 tonnes of rubber were shipped to foreign trade partners.
Rubber is commonly produced in Mon and Kayin states and Taninthayi, Bago, and Yangon regions in Myanmar. As per 2018-2019 rubber season data, there are over 1.628 million acres of rubber plantations in Myanmar, with Mon State accounting for 497,153 acres, followed by Taninthayi Region with 348,344 acres and Kayin State with 270,760 acres.
Myanmar bagged more than US$449 million in revenue in rubber exports in the previous financial year 2020-2021. — NN/EM