3:26:34 PM | 7/8/2005
Vietnam is likely to reap US$480 million from exporting rubber to China, its biggest rubber importer, this year, increasing 20 per cent thanks to higher demand, the Ministry of Trade said on March 27.
The rubber export volume to China this year, however, was not released. In 2004, China imported around 300,000 tons of Vietnamese products.
Export prices of Vietnamese rubber remains high, around US$1,150 per ton. However, the Vietnam Rubber Corporation (Geruco), the country's biggest rubber producer and exporter, will limit the export of unprocessed latex to China, and intensify export processed rubber products. The Vietnam Rubber Corporation said that almost all its affiliates are running out of natural rubber for on-the-spot supplies.
The world rubber price will also increase to US$1,250-1,320 per ton in the coming months due to insufficient supplies, and higher demand of China for rubber this year, estimated at 3.5 million tons, the ministry said.
Vietnam is estimated to supply 103,000 tons of rubber worth US$120 million to the world market in the first quarter of this year, posting year-on-year respective rises of 5.2 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively, according to the General Statistics Office.
Vietnam, the world's fourth largest rubber exporter, selling mainly to China, the United States, the European Union and Singapore, earned US$597 million from exporting 513,000 tons of rubber in 2004.
The country now cultivates 461,000 hectares of rubber trees.
Vietnamese
