KOTTAYAM, India—India's rubber manufacturing industry is becoming over-reliant on imports of low-cost natural rubber, the Rubber Research Institute of India has warned. The warning is based on an institute study that valued the industry's output—66 percent of which is based on NR—at close to $11 billion per year, and exports nearing $2.5 billion a year.
In recent years, however, low NR prices have discouraged rubber growers from tapping trees, leaving imports to meet growth in demand from India rubber product manufacturers. The report went on to say that this growth "is losing its momentum" and that the industry had "started to become overly dependent on imported NR."
"Indian rubber industry is too important for the economy to be left to the uncertainties and vagaries of NR supply in the global market for long," the institute concluded.