Top rubber growers postpone meeting

Top rubber growers postpone meeting

BANGKOK (Bloomberg): Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, the
world's top three rubber producers, indefinitely postponed a
meeting this week to discuss ways of boosting prices as the new
Thai government needs time to study a plan which may need state
funding, officials said.

The meeting was scheduled in Bangkok March 29. The three
countries produce four fifths of the world's natural rubber, used
to make tires, gloves and condoms.

The plan involves spending of money, and the Thai government
is reluctant to commit any new spending, said a senior official
at Thailand's Rubber Research Institute, the government's rubber
planning agency, who didn't want to be named. An official of the
Malaysian Rubber Board, who didn't want to be named, confirmed
the postponement.

Thailand's general election in January led to a change in
government. The new cabinet, led by Thaksin Shinawatra, indicated
during his election campaign he may be less eager to help rubber
growers. His Thai Rak Thai party won only one seat in the rubber-
growing provinces in southern Thailand which is the main base for
the opposition Democrat Party headed by former Prime Minister
Chuan Leekpai.

The countries have been discussing a plan to fix a minimum
price per kilogram for rubber to be sold in Southeast Asia, the
officials said earlier. Rubber prices have dropped by a quarter
in the past five months and are close to a 30-year low.

Still, the rubber producers haven't said whether they will
build stockpiles of the material to ensure the minimum price,
similar to a plan by major coffee exporters.