KUALA LUMPUR, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia's natural rubber production dropped by 20 percent in April to 22,498 tonnes as compared to 28,106 tonnes in the previous month, mainly attributed to wintering, official data showed Wednesday.
Year-on-year comparison also showed that the production of natural rubber decreased by 2.2 percent, the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) said in a statement.
Total stocks of natural rubber in April also fell 4.1 percent to 297,673 tonnes as compared to 310,433 tonnes in March.
Exports of Malaysia's natural rubber amounted to 58,755 tonnes in April, an increase of 10.2 percent from 53,328 tonnes in March.
China remained as the main destination for natural rubber exports which accounted for 39.7 percent of total exports in April, followed by the United States (11.3 percent), Finland (4.5 percent), Egypt (3.2 percent) and Iran (2.5 percent).
According to DOSM, the export performance was contributed by natural rubber-based products such as gloves, tires, tube, rubber threads and condoms.
Gloves were the main exports of rubber-based products with a value of 2.2 billion ringgit (about 500 million U.S. dollars) in April, an increase of 8.6 percent as compared to 2 billion ringgit in March. (1 ringgit equals 0.23 U.S. dollar) ■