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Four Factors Restricting the Development of China's Natural Rubber Industry
China's natural rubber industry faces four major challenges that hinder its rapid growth and development. First, a significant portion of existing rubber plantations has low productivity. Currently, many old rubber farms yield less than 50 kilograms per mu, with over 1.95 million mu of land affected. Additionally, nearly 3 million mu of new plantations remain unharvested. Private rubber farms often lack modern technology, suffer from outdated varieties, and use inefficient tapping methods, which limit their overall production potential.
Second, the layout of rubber planting areas is not well-organized, and the varieties being grown are aging. Although Brazil rubber trees were introduced as early as 1904, large-scale cultivation began after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Due to a lack of understanding of optimal growing conditions, rubber trees were often planted in typhoon-prone areas like eastern Hainan, leading to an imbalanced distribution of rubber bases. This has resulted in a slow adoption of high-quality new varieties, forcing reliance on imported premium rubber for a long time. This mismatch between domestic supply and market demand remains a key issue.
Third, the overall efficiency of the natural rubber industry is low. The main products are rubber and wood, with seed oil as a by-product. However, there is insufficient focus on the growth and accumulation of rubber trees. In contrast, Malaysia uses 70% to 80% of its rubber wood in furniture production, exporting around $2 billion worth of rubber wood furniture annually. This highlights the underutilization of by-products in China’s industry.
Fourth, rubber processing plants are small in scale and lack strong product development capabilities. Despite having a total annual dry rubber output of over 500,000 tons, China has only 324 processing plants, with an average capacity of just 1,600 tons per year. In comparison, processing plants in major Southeast Asian producers typically have capacities exceeding 10,000 tons. This small scale leads to higher processing costs, lower product quality, and difficulty in adopting new technologies. These factors collectively hamper the competitiveness and sustainability of China's natural rubber industry.