Cambodia earned $541.66 million from the export of Cambodian rubber and rubber articles in 2022, recording a growth of 28.3 percent compared to the previous year, despite adverse conditions including a fall in the prices of natural rubber.
According to the trade data released by the General Department of Customs and Excise (GDCE) recently, the exports of rubber articles constituted 2.4 percent of the total exports in 2022, slightly better than the 2.2 percent share in 2021.
The data showed that there was a sharp rise of 72.6 percent in the exports of rubber articles in December 2022 compared to December 2021, netting an export value of $89 million.
According to a report of Cambodia’s General Directorate of Rubber, the average selling price of rubber as of November 2022 was $1,229 per ton, a fall of $32 per ton, equivalent to 2.5 percent compared to the same period last year, in the country.
However, the International Rubber Consortium (IRCo) recently estimated that global economic recovery and continued tightness in supply will raise the prices of natural rubber (NR) in the first half of 2023.
While analysing the NR market trends, IRCo said in a report that rubber production may not increase at a large scale in the coming months in the three major producing countries of Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.
This is mainly due to the spread of the leaf disease, erratic weather conditions, increasing climate temperatures as well as low fertiliser-input caused by elevated costs, the report said.
A drought situation in the region and an early departure of tappers from plantations because of low NR prices would further affect output, it said.
Citing the latest statistics from the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC), the report forecast 2022 global production of natural rubber to reach 14.343 million tonnes.
With consumption expected to come in at 14.805 million tonnes, the global market would have a deficit of 462,000 tonnes for last year. The overall NR output from the Southeast Asia region could fall by 10 percent in the first half of 2023.
The Cambodian rubber market consists of China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, India, and the EU.
Meanwhile, the Malaysian Ministry of Plantation and Commodities and the Malaysian Rubber Board said in a statement recently that the drop in rubber prices last year was closely related to various factors including the sluggish global economic outlook, the increase in the supply of natural rubber, and the drop in price of crude oil, which affects the demand for synthetic rubber compared to natural rubber in the manufacture of rubber products and uncertainty from the situation in Ukraine.
This article was first published in Khmer Times. All contents and images are copyright to their respective owners and sources.
