Commodity market news on February 15, 2022

SMALL INDUSTRY NEWS
WORLD'S GOODS HIGHLIGHTS DAY 15.02

The uptrend of natural rubber prices continues to be maintained since September 2021 up to now. In the first week of February, the price of natural rubber surpassed 242 JPY/kg (~$2,080/ton), the highest price since June last year. Rubber prices increased thanks to a strong increase in world oil prices, as well as the market's expectation that demand will improve more clearly this year. In China, factories have begun to return to production after the Lunar New Year holiday, the shortage of semiconductor chips has also eased compared to the end of last year, the outlook for the auto industry is also forecasted to grow. better this year.

GOODS MARKET NEWS TODAY

Global natural rubber production in 2022 will increase by 5.6% over the same period in 2021 According to the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC), the easing of restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic such as reopening the borders of some countries and resumption of economic activities will contribute significantly to the recovery of rubber demand in 2022, especially in many major rubber producing countries in the East Asia region. South Asia like Vietnam or Thailand has been seriously affected by the Delta mutation before. Therefore, the prospect of the global rubber industry in 2022 will be very bright, selling prices will continue to remain high.

ANRPC forecasts that global rubber production in 2022 will increase by 5.6% compared to 2021. It is expected that the global rubber supply will continue to experience a shortage that could last until 2028 and beyond. 2031 due to the widening supply and demand gap. This forecast is made on the basis of assessing the planting trend and the possibility of expanding the area of mature rubber trees in rubber producing countries. The natural rubber industry has come out of a period of excess supply that lasted for many years before the Covid-19 pandemic.

From the beginning of February 2022 until now, rubber prices in most of the key commodity exchanges in Asia have increased sharply, such as in Thailand and Shanghai. Meanwhile, in the Japanese market, the growth was somewhat more modest as the momentum was still limited by concerns about a decrease in Japanese auto sales in January 2022. Falling new car sales add to signs that Japan's economy may shrink in the first quarter of 2022 due to continued supply chain disruptions and an increase in cases of the Omicron variant. like nowadays.