Rubber Industry 10M-2021 and Outlook in the last 2 months of the year
RUBBER PRICE
World rubber prices have tended to decrease from June 2021 mainly due to slowing demand from China - the world's largest rubber consuming country. However, the price of natural rubber has reversed to increase again from the end of September-2021 due to the impact of crude oil price - a factor affecting the price of synthetic rubber (a substitute for natural rubber).
At the latest report of ANRPC, the global demand for natural rubber in 2021 has been forecasted at 14,028 million tons (up 8.3% compared to 2020), down from the previous forecast (14,116 million tons). Meanwhile, the supply of natural rubber is forecasted to increase by 1.8% compared to 2020, reaching 13,836 million tons (instead of 13.79 million tons in the previous report).
Although rubber prices dropped at the beginning of Nov, they recovered in the 3rd week of the month. However, the market remains concerned that the global economic recovery may be difficult. Besides, the demand for natural rubber in China has not shown any clear signs of improvement.
The average export price of Vietnam's rubber in October-2021 is currently 19.55% higher than the export price in October-2020.
EXPORT
Cumulative 10M-2021, Vietnam rubber export output reached 1,493 thousand tons (up 14.2% over the same period), export value reached 2,490,000 tons (up 47.1% over the same period).
Although the export volume to China has decreased since the beginning of Q3 until now, this market still maintains the proportion of ~70% of Vietnam's rubber exports. Except for China, most of the other major import markets of Vietnamese rubber increased strongly in the first 10M of the year (such as India, EU, US). However, the proportion of these markets is still small.
In Oct 2021, export volume also increased slightly again after decreasing in August & September. Specifically, rubber export volume in Oct increased by 5.4% over the same period; while in August it decreased by 14.9% and in September it decreased by 12% compared to the same month of 2020.
The reason for the recovery was:
(i) activities of latex purchasing, processing, logistics related issues & gradual port clearance. recovered after the previous period of social distancing,
(ii) in addition, the export volume to the Chinese market improved compared to the previous month, and the export volume to India & the US also increased sharply compared to October 2020 .
FORECAST 2 THE LAST 2 MONTHS OF 2021
Demand and price of rubber may continue to recover but still face many difficulties. The reason is that the Chinese tire industry, although showing signs of improvement in Oct, is still slow. Chip shortages and power crises are still ongoing in the country. Accordingly, the total amount of Chinese rubber imports in Oct 2021 continued to decrease by 23.6% over the same period; This is the 5th consecutive month that China has reduced its rubber import volume. As of October 2021, China imported 5.47 million tons of rubber, down 9.4% in volume over the same period.
Source: Extracted from Vietdata's November 2021 Rubber Industry Report