Build more rubberised roads to boost rubber price: Ministry

KUALA LUMPUR: The Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry hopes all road construction throughout the country including the Pan Borneo Highway will be required to use rubber premix to maximise the usage of rubber produced by smallholders in the country and to stabilise the price of the commodity.
Its Deputy Minister, Datuk Datu Nasrun Datu Mansur said based on the ministry's study, each kilometre of rubberised road would use 4.2 tonnes of rubber.
"Our study has completed and we hope the Public Works Department would compel all road construction in the country to use rubber. The move would benefit rubber smallholders and if the Pan Borneo Highway uses rubber, it will invigorate the industry," he told Dewan Rakyat, today.
He was replying to a question by Datuk Fauzi Abdul Rahman (PKR-Indera Mahkota) who wanted to know whether rubberised roads would be built extensively in future.
Datu Nasrun said the decision to build more rubberised roads was up the Works Ministry as his ministry was only responsible for the study.
Meanwhile, Datu Nasrun said in 2017, China was the largest export destination of Malaysian natural rubber amounting to 870,000 tonnes which was 73% of the country total export (1.194 million tonnes)
"China is not only the largest importer of Malaysian natural rubber, in fact it is also the largest natural rubber consumer nation in the world using almost 40% of the overall natural rubber in the world," he said in a reply to the original question by Datuk Othman Abdul (BN-Pendang) who wanted to know the largest purchaser of rubber from Malaysia.
He said the ministry with the Malaysian Rubber Board and the Malaysian Rubber Export Promotion Council (MREPC) as well as industry players had been actively holding trade and technical missions to promote Malaysian rubber and rubber products to bolster the country's share in potential international markets such as Iran.
He said at the moment, Malaysia supplies about 5.5% of the world's total rubber output.
In this regard, he said Malaysia is cooperating with main producer countries as such Thailand and Indonesia through the International Tripartite Rubber Council (ITRC) to stabilise rubber price to a more rewarding level for smallholders in the country. — Bernama