The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) has released its latest report on trends in the industry, covering May 2020. It notes that consistent with a trend that began in April, natural rubber prices have begun to recover as the easing of Covid-19-related restrictions begins across the world. However, it also warns that the recovery is slow paced and subject to a host of risk factors.
In light of the most up-to-date information gathered from the producing countries, ANRPC has further scaled down its outlook on world production of natural rubber. This revised outlook predicts that world production is expected to fall by 4.7%, to 13.130 million tons through the course of 2020. This is 303,000 tons lower than the outlook it reported in April.
This downward revision is largely based on new figures from India and Indonesia. Based on this adjusted outlook, it suggests world consumption in 2020 is expected to fall 6.0% to 12.904 million tons.
