Ivory Coast's rubber output is rising and will jump next year as soaring demand from China encourages its farmers to switch from growing cocoa and coffee. "Production has increased slightly this year ... after 2010 it is going to rise sharply as thousands of hectares of new plantations come in," Akpangni Attobra, general secretary of the Ivorian natural rubber association (APROMAC), told Reuters in an interview.
Attobra said demand from China was far in excess of Ivory Coast's ability to meet it. "We have no problem with our markets - all our produce is being sold," he said. "Chinese demand is getting stronger and stronger. A lot of Chinese clients are coming here to see us for supplies but we are failing to meet their demand."
Ivory Coast is expecting to produce 218,000 tonnes of natural rubber in 2010, up from 205,000 in 2009, and output should rise sharply afterwards as new rubber plantations come on tap, he added. Ivory Coast is Africa's leading producer of natural rubber.
It planted some 3,000 hectares (7,413 acres) of new rubber plantations between May and July as part of a long-term policy of increasing rubber output to 600,000 tonnes of rubber per year by 2025, Attobra said. The West African country is also the world's top cocoa grower, but farmers complain of volatile prices and irregular payments for the cocoa beans they produce. Rubber is seen by many as more attractive because of a regular monthly harvest.
Attobra said 8,000 hectares of new rubber plantations would be planted in 2010, subsidised by the state. "We have already begun to select farmers who are interested in benefiting from this project," Attobra added. He added that the number of factories for processing rubber rose last year to 11 from 8 in 2008, but local processing remained just 5 percent of the total market. A plan to produce tyres locally had not yet taken off. "The country has not set up industrial units to manufacture the tires because they are heavy industries that require much investment," Attobra said.
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