Gloom for Vietnam rubber industry as global prices dip

Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Reported by Ngan Anh
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

Vietnam, one of the world’s major rubber exporters, is faced with plummeting natural rubber prices because of the global recession and the increasing use of synthetic rubber, according to a conference in Hanoi Tuesday.

“In the context of the current economic slowdown, rubber demand from the auto tire industry has dropped,” Nguyen Tri Ngoc, head of the Cultivation Department, said.

Global tire output is expected to grow slower, at 2-3 percent, until 2010, compared with 3.4 percent in 2007, according to the Vietnam Rubber Association.

More than half of the world’s rubber supply is used in tire production.

Tran Duc Vien, director of the Hanoi Agriculture University, said the plummeting crude oil prices have increased the use of synthetic rubber, dragging rubber costs down.

Oil prices have tumbled 72.8 percent from a record $147 per barrel on July 11.

The peak period for Vietnam’s latex production is from September to December, Vien said, bringing a huge supply of rubber to the market and depressing prices.

Rubber prices decreased to around $1,300 per ton in December from $2,700 in 2007, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said, adding they are forecast to fall further next year.

In other problems, the country has many farms with old rubber trees and low output. Some firms that have invested in growing rubber trees in Laos and Cambodia face fierce competition from China and Thailand.

Government bailout

The government plans to buy 100,000 tons of rubber to reduce farmers’ stockpiles, reduce interest on bank loans to rubber firms and not increase the area under rubber, Ngoc told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

“Vietnam will grow saplings to replace old rubber trees on some 150,000 hectares. We can tap latex from them after six years.

“The global economy may recover after 2010, and rubber from the new trees could enjoy high prices.”

The country would also improve trade promotion, consolidate traditional markets like China, South Korea, Taiwan and Russia, and expand potential ones like the US, Japan and the EU, the association’s general secretary Tran Thi Thuy Hoa said.

Vien said it should reduce shipments of raw rubber, reduce the reliance on China which now buys 60 percent of its total exports and sell more to rich nations.

Rubber firms should increase their investment in production, improve management and quality and develop trademarks, he added.

Vietnam, the world's fourth biggest natural rubber exporter after Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, shipped abroad 719,000 tons worth $1.4 billion last year, or 85 percent of its total output, according to the ministry.

Is the rubber market dangerously tickling the financial Meltdown monster?

Phlau Bek Kang Lek (Cambodia), 26/12/2000. Children collecting rubber on the plantation. (Photo: John Vink / Magnum)

19-12-2008
By Ros Dina
Ka-set in English
Click here to read the article in French
Click here to read the article in Khmer

Cambodia's rubber producers broke the news in November at the Forum gathering Government representatives and private investors: the plummeting of latex prices makes them fear the worst for the rubber industry. In a matter of weeks, pressurised by the world financial crisis, the prices of certain raw materials derived from rubber trees have collapsed and reached a value that is now three times cheaper than before, forcing producers to sound the alarm and demand a rebate on export fees imposed by the state. For the time being, the government do not wish to accede to the request, when observers have advised that the situation of the main Cambodian rubber tree growers, although not as juicy as it was a few months ago, is far from being desperate.

Plummeting latex prices

Mak Kimhong, director-general of the Chup rubber plantation in the province of Kampong Cham, quoted figures to illustrate the downturn that has recently taken place on the latex market in just a few weeks: in October, the price of a tonne of solid rubber amounted to US$3,300; the second week of December saw it go down to US$900. Cambodia, just like the rest of the world, owes this decrease to the repercussions of the global financial crisis and its first negative consequences on consumers' buying power. To Mak Kimhong, if the situation keeps worsening, entrepreneurs linked with the rubber market will definitely not be able to cope.

“The buying price of concentrated rubber latex is already fluctuating , with a tonne selling between US$1,200 and US$1,300. Despite the decrease in oil prices and general costs, our company's profit is already melting down”, the director complained, adding that he did not “dare” cutting the wages of some 4,400 people working on his plantations. The company's wage bill represents a monthly total of US$500,000 (i.e. an average salary of US$113 per month and per employee, according to him). “If we cut down salaries, workers will refuse to work for us. And this will lead the company to suffer even more losses. Therefore, we do not have any other choice, in these circumstances, than to lose money”, he explained, before acknowledging that his firm could afford to act so, “because we have earned a great deal of money in the past”...

Export fees: from 10% to 30 dollars per tonne?

Reacting to price drops and anticipating the crisis' repercussions on the rubber industry, rubber tree growers and Cambodian latex producers formulated a “proposition” to the government at the end of November and backed it up with a line of argument, so as to obtain a rebate on export fees applying to rubber by-products. They are asking for the fees to be cut down from 10% of the selling price of concentrated latex – approximately US$100 per tonne – to a fixed amount of US$30 per tonne. Mak Kimhong, for his part, asserted that for every tonne sold, his company was currently losing US$200 to US$300, and that considering production costs, cutting export fees would be an effective measure to relieve the sector from the glue it is stuck in. He put forward what is to him evidence: other governments of ASEAN country-members, like Thailand and Malaysia, have decided to enforce similar measures.

Oknha Mong Reththy, vice-president of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce but also chairman of the agriculture and Agro-Industry Private Sector Working Group , mentioned the demand to the head of government on November 21st. However, the powerful Cambodian businessman's request was not met straight away, unlike the case of garment sector representatives, who were granted a 10% rebate on export fees after having requested a 30% cut.

The director of the Chup company Mak Kimhong continues for his part to argue in favour of the rebate since, according to him, the state has already and largely benefited from the bonus that export fees on rubber-related products currently represent. In the most prosperous times, he added, each tonne of concentrated latex brought in about US$300 in export fees for the government. And according to the director, the Chup company alone exports some 9,000 tonnes of concentrated latex every year.

Income cut by 60%

But Vannak, who owns a 30-hectare rubber tree plantation in Chamka Leu in the Kampong Cham province, also reckoned a state intervention would be useful since the price drops have led him to lose 60% of the company's income compared with August this year. “Today, I almost have no money to bring to my family. A 30-litre drum of latex only brings in 20,000 riels (US$5) when not so long ago this price went as high as 90,000 riels (US$22). What we earn at the moment is just enough to pay for workers' wages”, he complained, adding that the company had already had to wait 6 years for the plantation to actually produce rubber latex.

The crisis also affects the extraction sector

The decrease in rubber prices does not just affect rubber growers but also workers in charge of extracting and collecting rubber latex, like Seiha, who works on a family rubber plantation in the village of Ta Ong, in the Chamka Leu province. He earns a fixed income of 200 riels per litre of latex, which allows him to earn an average of 10,000 riels (US$2.50) per day. He tops up these meagre savings by collecting the dried latex stuck on utensils and around the rubber tree cuts in his free time, before the start of the early afternoon collection. “My employer told me to do this, and he takes half of it for himself. Ten kilos of dried latex used to sell for 40,000 riels (US$10), which meant 20,000 riels for my employer and 20,000 for myself. But today, the same quantity of product only sells for 6,000 riels (US$1.25), that is 3,000 each”, he deplored, arguing that above this, increasing everyday living costs were not here to help.

No bankruptcy for rubber producers?

An expert in Cambodian rubber industry, who wished to remain anonymous, rejected for his part alarmist stances. With a tonne of concentrated latex selling for about US$1,000, to him, the sector seems far from going bankrupt and companies are unlikely to close down... According to him, rubber investors are still earning money even though the income at stake is far from being what it used to be. The expert used his own experience in that matter as an argument: in 1998 and 1999, facing the collapse of rubber prices, when an oil barrel sold for an average of US$65, he still managed to make a profit of 2% to 3% . The return on investment was definitely much less important than the interest rate of a placement on an interest-bearing account, he said, but still allowed to a certain activity in the company without major difficulties. Nowadays, considering production costs and the fact that oil prices have dropped to nearly US$45 a barrel, investors in the sector can generate profit that would almost be equivalent to bank interest rates, the expert concluded.

The Minister of Agriculture Chan Sarun made a similar calculation on the situation. On Monday December 15th, after a seminar on rural training, he estimated that the plummeting of rubber prices did not threaten Cambodian companies and also gave the example of the 1998 crisis, which the sector strongly resisted. “The way is not blocked. Latex will keep running inside the trees, even if we don't cut them open. We know that the situation is hard for investors at the moment, because of the world crisis. But I reckon the price of rubber will go up again, simply because this raw material is needed every day in the world”, the Minister declared, without yet setting aside the possibility of a rebate in export fees. Indeed, Chan Sarun explained he was willing to discuss the matter more deeply with the Minister of Economy and Finance, who is “responsible” for that.

With or without a fee rebate, there is still a market for Cambodian concentrated latex, especially in the region. According to Mak Kimhong, China is one of the Kingdom's main customers, followed by Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and, to a lesser extent, European countries like Germany and Belgium. “Khmer rubber latex ends up being exporter to China anyway”, he analysed. “Even when we sell our production to Vietnam, they transform it and export it to China themselves... China is the biggest rubber consumer in the world...”

In order to take advantage from the the growing appetite of the Chinese mammoth and be less vulnerable to price fluctuations, the Cambodian rubber sector might have to jump onto another phase, like its neighbouring countries: transforming rubber latex into products involving a high profit margin. According to the Minister of Agriculture, Cambodia might soon benefit from the technological help and advice of two foreign companies, a Chinese one and a French one, Michelin. According to the Minister, they expressed their interest in Cambodia and are actually studying the possibility of establishing tyre production facilities in the country. These projects should come as a bonus for the Cambodian rubber sector.