India’s natural rubber production declined by 5 per cent to 97,000 tonnes in January, while consumption of the commodity fell by 9 per cent to 75,000 tonnes in the same month, data from Rubber Board shows.
The country had produced 1,02,500 tonnes natural rubber while it had consumed 82,535 tonnes in January 2012.
Import of natural rubber fell by 18 per cent to 28,905 tonnes in January 2013 from 23,672 tonnes in January 2012, while, the export of the commodity jumped by more than five-fold to 4,850 tonnes from 967 tonnes during the same period.
For the first ten months this fiscal, natural rubber output rose marginally to 7,90,200 tonnes from 7,84,400 tonnes in April-January of 2011-12 fiscal.
Consumption of rubber rose by 2 per cent to 8,17,815 tonnes from 8,01,750 tonnes during the review period.
Natural rubber imports were high at 1,97,113 tonnes in April-January of 2012-13 fiscal compared to 1,65,936 tonnes in the year-ago period, whereas, exports were down at 15,632 tonnes from 23,730 during the same period.
The stock of natural rubber in the country stood at 2,96,000 tonnes at the end of January 2013.