New Season for Rubber Tapping Starts

New Season for Rubber Tapping Starts

Here comes the new season for rubber tapping in 2009. In H2 March, the rubber trees were tapped in some producing areas in Xishuangbanna, which was about 10-15 days earlier than the normal years, but about the same time as last year.

In the middle of March, rubber tapping started in some of Xishuangbanna producing areas, and Dongfeng producing area saw larger-scale rubber tapping operation. Now, the rubber tapping has started fully in major producing areas, except Mengla County. Xishuangbanna usually has a dry season in March and the rainfall is low. The rubber tapping started a bit earlier this year than last year. Affected by the acrid condition, the NR output is relatively low in the early stage of rubber tapping.

By the end of March, some producers have started their production, while some producers are still preparing. Firstly, producers which use rubber stick as feedstock or have substitute feedstock, have resumed their normal workload. Secondly, some producers which use field latex as feedstock started to collect NR at the end of March, although the purchase volume was small. Thirdly, the feedstock output was low. Although small volume of rubber was sent to the producers, producers showed thin interest in purchasing. On the whole, the workload in producers won’t be resumed to the normal level until the beginning of April.

It’s learnt by SCI that some enterprises are purchasing natural rubber right now. The purchasing prices of field latex in Yunnan producing area are RMB 9-9.5/kg. Since the rubber tapping has also started in Baoting producing area which is located in the south of Yunnan, the newly-harvested field latex will be purchased soon.

The inventory at Wangjiaying Warehouse in Kunming City is increasing continuously to around 180kt and has hit a new high. The capacity of some state-owned warehouses is full. As for those private-owned warehouses, the warehouse receipts to the total capacity increase to above 80%. The goods of arbitrage dealers are mostly stored at state-owned warehouse, and the liquidity of natural rubber is sluggish. Therefore, problems arise when the newly-harvested natural rubber is being put into the warehouse.

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