Cambodia’s rubber exports on the rise

Rubber exports from January to July 2024 made up a total of 173,915 tonnes of natural rubber latex, revealed a new report by the General Directorate of Rubber at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries on Sunday. The figure is a marginal rise of 1.72 percent from 170,968 tonnes in the corresponding period a year earlier.

According to Khun Kakada, Acting Director General of the Rubber Directorate, the cost of a tonne of rubber latex was an average of $1,547 from January to July 2024. The figure, he said, is nearly $147 higher in comparison to the same period last year.

Export destinations for Cambodian rubber are primarily Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore and China. The report went on to reveal that rubber trees were planted in an area of 407,172 hectares. Of these, 320,184 hectares of trees accounting for 78.6 percent are mature enough for tapping.

“The rubber industry is facing a very important change with the setting up of the tyre factories,” said Philippe Monnin, Managing Director, Memot Rubber Plantation to Khmer Times on Monday.

“Since the starting of the rubber plantations in 1910, Cambodia has always exported the rubber produced here,” he added.

In the 60s, Monnin explained, a modest domestic production factory had been making Cambodian tyres. It has been indefinitely closed down in the beginning of the 90s. Then since last year, the huge tyre factories were about to request a large part of the domestic production in terms of quantities.

Unfortunately, the quality produced by the current factories does not match the quality requested by the tyre manufacturers. This situation is a real challenge. The tyre manufacturers are importing rubber from neighbouring countries instead, which is not satisfactory in the least, he said.

For the smallholders, the situation is even worse. They are still exporting their raw material without any opportunity to process it inside Cambodia, Monnin added.

“The main issue is the water treatment out of the factory. The process requires acid to coagulate the rubber. Consequently, the water cannot be ejected directly into the environment. All factories need a treatment device or system to be set up,” he added.

The good agricultural practices for rubber plantation require the land to be covered up in the inter rows during the growth period, for six to seven years. A specified cover crop is required to avoid a yearly ploughing with tractors and allow the rain to get into the soil without any erosion.

“We have been conducting an industrial trial of cover-cropping in our plantation since 2021 and the first results are significant for the quality of the soil,” Monnin continued. These trials are followed up by the Rubber Research Institute of Cambodia, he added.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Hun Manet made a request to the Kingdom’s tyre factories to choose domestic rubber for their production. This would help create a market for Cambodia’s rubber farmers. In recent times, there has been surging growth in Cambodia’s tyre manufacturing industry.

The three leading names in the business are General Tires Technology, Sailun Group and Qingdao Doublestar Group.

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