Buoyed by favorable prices, Malaysia’s rubber producers...

Buoyed by favorable prices, Malaysia’s rubber producers last year recorded the biggest increase in rubber output registered during the past 12 years.

Figures published by the country’s statistics department last week showed that Malaysian natural rubber production during 1988 was 79,343 tons, or 5%, higher than in 1987 at a record 1.658 million tons. Output had been stagnant at around 1.5 million tons a year throughout the early 1980s.

The average price for top grade rubber sheets--specifically RSS No. 1, the hedging grade--rose by about 25% last year to $1.13 a kilogram.

Despite the record production, Malaysian rubber exports for last year were only marginally higher, at 1.61 million tons, than in 1987. So stocks at the end of the marketing year were valued at about 5.15 billion ringgit (Malaysian dollars), an increase of some 1.23 billion ringgit.

Major buyers were Singapore (205,000 tons), South Korea (167,000 tons), the United States (135,000 tons), China (112,000 tons), Japan (95,000 tons) and West Germany (95,000 tons).

The figures show that the Far East has now overtaken the industrialized countries of the West as the major market for Malaysian natural rubber, a trend that is expected to continue.