Rubber export prices have surged to around 2,300 USD per tonne as of the middle of last month, reaching their highest level since the start of this year, according to the Vietnam Rubber Association.
“Compared to February 2009, rubber prices have climbed by more than 1,000 USD per tonne,” said Tran Thuy Hoa, general secretary of the VRA.
According to Hoa, high rubber prices have been caused by rising crude oil prices on the world market.
Moreover, she said, global demand for industrial production started to increase after a lull, due to the world recession.
Meanwhile, the supply of rubber to the world market dropped when late last year, three leading rubber producing countries, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, cut their output by more than 6 percent on seeing the price drop.
After their reduction, the total natural rubber output on the world market in 2009 was only 9.36 million tonnes, 640,000 tonnes lower than in 2008.
Many rubber exporters have enjoyed high export price.
“Many members of the Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG) have benefited from high export prices since the beginning of this month. Some of them even reported prices as high as 2,680 USD per tonne. However, this figure is not huge,” said Dinh Van Tien, head of the Import-Export Department under the group.
According to a report from the General Statistics Office, the country exported 637,000 tonnes of rubber in the first 11 months of this year, earning revenue of nearly 1.02 billion USD.
Volume increased by 3.1 percent but value is down by 41.7 percent over same period last year.
In November alone, the country exported 80,000 tonnes of rubber.
This year, the country predicts to earn 1.2 billion USD from exporting about 650,000 tonnes of rubber./.