China importing more rubber to keep up with auto markets demands

---

From Commodity Online:

Natural rubber demand in world’slargest auto market China continued to boost the commodity as the demand expected to climb by nearly 8 percent, analysts said.

According to China Rubber Industry Association, country’s rubber demand is expected to hit to 2.89 million tons on strong growth in the vehicle market.

Meanwhile, China’s rubber imports are also on the rise as imports for May hit 120,000 tons, up 33.3% more than the 90,000 tons it imported in the same period of last year.

The May imports, however, were 33.3% less than the 180,000 tons imports in April.

In the first five months of 2011, China’s natural rubber imports swelled 6.4% year on year to 770,000 tons. China imported 1.71 million tons of natural rubber.

Last month, the country imported 122,063 tons of synthetic rubber, down 9.5% year on year from 134,845 tons but up 3.2% month on month from 118,300 tons.

During the five-month period, China’s synthetic rubber imports totaled 625,325 tons, down 13.9% year on year.

According to a separate report from General Administration of Customs, China imported $1.31 billion worth of natural rubber in the first quarter of this year, reflecting a year-on-year jump of 145.4%, and the average import price stood at US$2,600 per ton, doubled that of the first quarter of last year.

Analysts said the surged imported prices of natural rubber were caused by severe drought principally in the Southeast Asian countries, such as Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

China’s natural rubber production growth almay be little changed this year as a drought in key growing regions curbs output, according China Natural Rubber Association.

Drought in Yunnan is particularly dire as the region accounts for 40 percent of total production and is China’s second-largest rubber producer after Hainan province.

China overtook the US as the world’s largest auto market in 2009 as government stimulus boosted sales by more than 40 percent. Total tire consumption will rise to more than 404 million tires in 2010 compared with a record 380 million last year, China Rubber Industry Association’s Fan said.