KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers Association (Margma) has called for vigilance over unscrupulous individuals or companies masquerading as representatives of big bonafide manufacturers.
Its president, Denis Low Jau Foo, said the association has urged its members to be proactive in tracking down scammers with the assistance of the police and private investigators.
“This act is clearly tarnishing the image of the industry and Malaysia. It has an adverse effect on the global trade economy,” he said in a statement today, amid a recent report by the Wall Street Journal about fake medical gloves being peddled in the United States.
At the same time, he called on buyers, distributors, and importers to understand that genuine manufacturers are doing its best to supply adequately, unlike the opportunist middlemen who exploit with fake promises.
“This industry is a mature and well-established industry where businesses and regular buyers are aware of genuine manufacturers, while newcomers are susceptible to scammers,” he said.
Low added that the supply and demand dynamics are lopsided due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but the industry is doing its best to churn out as many gloves as possible to meet the extraordinary demand across the globe.
Margma members are being hampered by several factors to push out more gloves, and the major stumbling blocks causing the bottleneck are the huge shortages of workers and raw materials, he said.
“According to our calculations, the industry could lose out on the opportunity to export more than 80 billion pieces of gloves in 2020 by not having enough workers. This translates to about RM7.6 billion in export revenue for Malaysia,” he said.
Hence, he asked the government to allow a reasonable number of foreign workers to work in factories.
He said approximately 40% of the workforce are locals who hold leadership, professional and technical positions, and this group is highly paid.
“We seek the government’s support to ensure that enough local workers are available to sustain this top 40% bracket,” he said.
On the business side, Low said Margma is revising its export revenue projection for 2020, from RM21.8 billion to RM29.8 billion, based on the performance in the first half of the year.
“Margma projected that in the next six months, the export revenue is expected to touch RM18 billion. The quantity is estimated to reach 130 billion pieces of gloves.
“For 2021, Margma estimates that our annual export revenue should touch RM33.8 billion, with quantity increasing to 270 billion pieces,” he said.
Whether the demand for gloves would continue to be as strong as it is now, Low said it could take several years for the industry to fulfil the demand as it stands today.
“A sizeable factory would take 18 to 24 months to churn out three to four billion pieces of gloves per annum, and it requires about RM200 to RM250 million to build such a factory.
“Engineering and material support must also expand in tandem, otherwise, they would not be able to cope with the expansion programme,” he said. — Bernama
