Rubber production ‘expected to drop 30 per cent this year’

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Chalermchai Sri-on said on Thursday (August 9) that he would discuss the problem of plummeting rubber price and find suitable solutions with the Rubber Authority of Thailand.
He said the ministry’s current subsidy measure is only a short-term remedy.
“To tackle the rubber price problem in the long-term, we need to push existing products for domestic use as much as possible,” he said. “Besides using rubber for road construction, the Agriculture Ministry will collaborate with other agencies to find ways to utilise rubber as a raw material in other projects such as playground safety tiles, traffic cones, road barriers, and multi-purpose floor mats.”
Chalermchai hinted that this year’s rubber production would drop by at least 30 per cent due to labour shortage and drought, which had caused rubber trees to die before yielding latex, especially in the northeastern region. “The Agriculture Ministry will survey the market’s rubber demand against available domestic stock to set a suitable price for rubber in the third and fourth quarters,” he said.
Next week, the minister will also discuss with private entrepreneurs, rubber exporters and processors to formulate solutions to the rubber price problem. “Most importantly, I want to find out why the five largest rubber exporters have suddenly stopped buying rubber from farmers, suspiciously citing ‘factory maintenance’ as the reason,” Chalermchai said.