One million ha for rubber cultivation

-The Star-
Govt to maintain land area in view of stable rubber prices

KUALA LUMPUR: The Government sees natural rubber prices remaining stable in the medium term, backed by steady domestic and overseas demand.

Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok said the tripartite agreement between Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia would also help stabilise natural rubber prices, in addition to an absence of rubber oversupply.

“We’ve observed a trend where rubber prices rose in tandem with palm oil prices,” he told reporters after the launch of the National Rubber Economic Conference yesterday, referring to gains in palm oil prices in May.
Tan Sri Bernard Dompok … Rubberwood products are marketable in Europe

To sustain the growth of the rubber industry, the Government aims to maintain a land area of at least one million ha every year for rubber cultivation, with an annual replanting of 20,000ha.

Currently, there are only 1.2 million ha planted with rubber trees in Malaysia.

“We are also looking at the possibility of going large-scale on cultivating rubber trees as a forest product to meet the rising demand of timber as raw material for furniture-making,” Dompok said.

Under the Government’s forest plantation programme, an additional land area of 12,000 ha to 15,000 ha will be allocated for rubber plantation.

Dompok said rubberwood products were marketable in Europe because rubber tree was characterised as environmental-friendly, an important consideration when making purchases in those countries.

With the emergence of China, India and Vietnam as highly competitive regional rubber production hubs, Malaysia might run the risk of losing its current status as the leading rubber product exporter in the world, Dompok said.

“One cannot totally rule out the possibility that there may be a gradual relocation of production plants or a strategic diversification of factory locations within the Asian region,” he said.

He added that Malaysia must continue to improve on the quality of rubber production as well as consistently replant and replace old rubber trees and unproductive clones.

Commenting on the shift in rubber plantations to oil palm estates, Dompok said the ministry was trying to give incentives to rubber smallholders as well as diversify crop plantations based on the suitability of the land to the crop.

Last year, the rubber industry’s export earnings rose 7.9% to RM29.13bil, mainly driven by exports of rubber-based products.