KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's rubber products remain dominant in the third quarter of 2021, allowing the industry to continue to thrive and contribute to the country's economy.
According to Malaysia Rubber Council (MRC), until October 2021, the overall exports of rubber and rubber products increased by RM63.2 billion (70.7 per cent) as compared to RM37 billion in 2020.
The latex goods sector continues to show strong performance amounting to RM51.4 billion, an increase of 86.3 per cent over the same period last year at RM27.6 billion.
Rubber gloves remain the highest earner with export revenue of almost RM50 billion, an increase of almost 91 per cent from the previous year.
Medical gloves made up 40.1 per cent of the latex goods sector amounting to RM22.2 billion, MRC noted.
As countries are ramping up their vaccination programme, large-scale vaccine deployment is increasing the need for medical gloves such as examination gloves.
Meanwhile, MRC said the dry rubber products sector has also indicated positive growth in 2021.
The tyre industry was enhanced with the aim to diversify Malaysia's export contribution of high-value products and increase the export performance of dry rubber products while simultaneously increasing the consumption of locally produced rubber, MRC said.
January to October 2021 saw an encouraging increase of tyres exports by 28.1 per cent, compared to the same period last year amounting to almost RM1.4 billion.
MRC chief executive officer Nor Hizwan Ahmad said the council is pushing for industry players to move up the global value chain by introducing new channels and ideologies.
Hizwan said this includes collaborations with International Development Organisations (IDOs).
"MRC's role here is to assist companies in leveraging on the opportunities offered by the IDOs in terms of sales pipeline development, tender support and capacity building programmes," he said.
Hizwan said MRC will embark on a new initiative namely the Global Fund for Rubber Innovation (GFRI) to promote new ideas, innovations, and inventions with high commercial viability within the rubber industry.
It is an RM10 million grant intended to seed innovative interdisciplinary non- fundamental research with the potential to spur investments in high-value products and technologies within the rubber and rubber products industry, he said.
"We hope to create more value to the industry by projecting more market opportunities through commercialisation and investment of the new and enhanced downstream rubber products and upstream/midstream equipment or technologies," he added.