Malaysia's natural rubber production fell 39.2 percent month on month to 21,044 tonnes in May due to the impact restrictive measures imposed by the government to contain COVID-19.
Malaysian Statistics Department said in a statement that the natural rubber production slumped 52.7 percent as compared with the same period of previous year.
"The decline in the production of natural rubber was also supported by the closing stocks in the previous month. This situation is among the remedial measures taken to address the shortage of production," said the department.
Stocks of natural rubber started to decline by 8.2 percent to 295,146 tonnes in May as compared to 321,413 tonnes in April.
Exports of Malaysia's natural rubber also decreased by 16.8 percent month on month to 33,780 tonnes.
China remains as the main natural rubber export destination, accounting for 50.4 percent of total exports in May. This was followed by Germany (13.4 percent), United States (5.2 percent), Turkey (4.1 percent) and Egypt (2.5 percent).
Rubber gloves remained the major export item with an export value of 2.13 billion ringgit (500 million U.S. dollars) in May as compared to 1.98 billion ringgit (460 million U.S. dollars) in April. Enditem
