India’s natural rubber production declined by 14% to 4.4 lakh tons, while imports fell by 7% during the first nine months of this fiscal. Rubber production dropped to 4.4 lakh tons in April-December period of this fiscal from 5.1 lakh tons in the corresponding period of the previous year, as per the data of Rubber Board.
The consumption of natural rubber too fell by nearly 3% to 7,43,260 tons during April-December 2015 from 7,64,685 tons earlier. Imports dipped to 3,27,288 tons from 3,51,034 tons during the period under review.
As per the data, natural rubber production fell to 58,000 tons during last month from 63,000 tons in December 2014, while consumption dropped to 84,000 tons from 85,820 tons. However, natural rubber imports increased to 37,078 tons in December 2015 from 34,324 tons in the same month of previous year. Meanwhile, the government last week allowed import through only two sea ports of Chennai and Nhava Sheva in order to curb inbound shipments.