Latex future in gloves, condoms

Latex future in gloves, condoms

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuter): Gloves, catheters and condoms will continue consuming most of the latex produced by the world in the future, but developing nations will overtake the West in becoming the best markets for the products, an expert said yesterday.

Malaysia is expected to remain the largest consumer of latex concentrates and the biggest exporter of latex-dipped products, with Thailand and Indonesia slowly catching up, said Abu Talib Bachik, an official of the Malaysian Rubber Research and Development Board.

"Developing countries appear to be potential markets for an increase in demand for latex products where currently the per capita consumption of latex-disposable products is still low due to low-income and health-care systems that are still developing and unsophisticated," he said.

Addressing the Natural Rubber & Synthetic Rubber Markets '97 conference, Abu Talib said the United States was the largest importer and consumer of rubber gloves in the world, followed by the European Union and Malaysia.

He said the usage of gloves could increase in Europe but the market was not as large as the United States, where about five to six times as much medical gloves were used.

World consumption of latex stood at 698,000 tons in 1995, with East Asia accounting for 54 percent of the volume.

Abu Talib said Malaysia has become one of the biggest consumers of latex concentrates because of the rapid expansion of its manufacturing-driven economy. The country is the largest producer of rubber after Thailand and Indonesia.

A heavy relocation of labor-intensive industries to Malaysia, China and India -- from Japan, Korea and Taiwan -- has also seen a shift in consumption patterns within East Asia.

Abu Talib said figures available until 1995 showed that Malaysia's consumption was around 210,000 tons while China's was at 61,000 and India's at 57,000.

He said the future consumption of latex products may be affected by competition from other material such as nitrile and other synthetics.

But latex-derived gloves were expected to remain popular due to "other better qualities inherent in them", said Abu Talib.

The conference was organized by the Singapore-based Center for Management Technology.