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.