Malaysia's rubber exports

Malaysia's rubber exports

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysia's rubber export earnings are projected to grow to 10 billion ringgit (US$4 billion) by 2010 from 7.9 billion ringgit last year, a senior minister said.

Domestic consumption of natural rubber which reached 326,126 tons last November, is expected to rise to 600,000 tons by 2010, said Primary Industries Minister Lim Keng Yaik.

Malaysia, once the world's top natural rubber producer, is now the world's fourth largest consumer of the commodity as it shifts its focus to developing rubber-based products.

The country, which produced 1.66 million tons at its peak in 1988, lost its century-long pole position in world natural rubber production in 1991 and is now the third largest producer after Thailand and Indonesia.