OUTLOOK FOR RUBBER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 28 November 1945, Page 4

OUTLOOK FOR RUBBER

IN the United States sufficient stocks of natural and synthetic rubber are in sight to allow all controls over the use and distribution of the product to be revoked as from th e end of this year. Indeed, once immediate civilian shortages are made up, more than enough rubber for all is expected to be available, so the long-term outlook for th e industry is one of surpluses rather than scarcity. When Japan overran Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies she took possession of territory producing 90 per cent, of the world’s natural rubber. Of the total world output at that time of one and a half million tons she seized 1,350,000 tons, leaving the anti-Axis nations with about 150,000 tons. As we well know, that led to drives for rigid economy in the use of rubber, to salvage on an unprecedented scale, and to the building up by the United States of a synthetic rubber industry. Teams of rubber rehabilitators were organised —chiefly by Britain—to go into the plantations so soon as the Japanese left and the general finding there is that the destruction is not nearly so heavy as was anticipated. Substantial imports of natural rubber from the Far Fast to America are in near prospect if some have not already been made. These will build up stocks and, in addition, there is the quickly-perfected synthetic process which, by the end of the war, was turning out nearly a million tons a year of a much-improved product selling at a lower price than crude rubber. If this manufacture Continues the plantation industry will have a serious competitor, leading possibly to restriction of production targets. How soon New Zealand’s acute rubber shortage will be eased depends on shipping, import control and the policy of tyre manufacture within the Dominion, but there seems little doubt that, before very long, the world rubber supply will be adequate to meet all current needs.