Rubber alliance

Published April 9, 2002

KUALA LUMPUR, April 8: An alliance grouping the world’s top three rubber producers — Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia — would begin boosting prices within the coming months of this year, Malaysia said Monday.

We are going into the final process of putting into procedure the implementation of the Bali agreement together with the setting up of a 255 million dollar consortium to trade rubber and for stockpile purposes, Lim Keng Yaik, Malaysian primary industries minister said.

With this in hand, we should see rubber prices going up to a much more encouraging level in the coming months of this year, he said.

Lim said Thailand, the largest producer, will take up the biggest portion of shares in the consortium. It will be followed by Indonesia and Malaysia.—AFP