Southeast Asia's top three rubber producers are to issue a joint statement on measures to support prices this week, a senior industry official said on Tuesday. "The joint statement is expected to be released after a teleconference between agriculture ministers on October 30-31," the official at the International Rubber Consortium Limited (IRCo) told Reuters.
Senior IRCo officials were due to meet Agriculture Ministry representatives from the top three rubber producers - Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia - to discuss the draft before submitting it for ministerial approval later this week, he said.
The Bangkok-based IRCo, established in 2004 by the three countries, aims to stabilise rubber prices. "There will not be any face-to-face ministerial meeting in Bangkok as we had planned, but there will be a teleconference to agree on what the senior officials propose," the official said.
Benchmark export-grade RSS3 was quoted at $1.75 per kg on Tuesday, having dropped more than 40 percent from a record high of $3.25 per kg in July due to fears of falling demand. Early this month the world's top three rubber producers ended a meeting with a promise of more talks but no firm measures to deal with slumping prices.
Thailand, the biggest rubber producer, has since said it aimed to cut production by 700,000 tonnes in six months starting form October to shore up prices. Indonesia, the number two producer, also plans to cut natural rubber production by 30 percent to support prices. But sceptical traders said the plan to reduce supply would not work because it would be hard to convince poor farmers to tap less rubber, and they called for more concrete price support measures, such as building a government stockpile.
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