KUALA LUMPUR, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia's natural rubber production increased by 8.9 percent to 30,556 tonnes in December 2022, as compared to 28,048 tons in November 2022, official data showed Tuesday.
The Department of Statistics Malaysia said in a statement that on a year-on-year comparison, the production of natural rubber decreased by 26.7 percent.
Exports of Malaysia's natural rubber amounted to 48,797 tons in December 2022, down 4.2 percent as against 50,927 tons in November.
China remained as the main destination for natural rubber exports, accounting for 47.6 percent of the total exports in December 2022, followed by Germany (4.2 percent), the United States (4.2 percent), Iran (4.1 percent) and Brazil (2.6 percent).
The export performance was contributed by natural rubber-based products such as gloves, tyre, tube, rubber thread and condom.
Gloves were the main exports of rubber-based products with a value of 1.09 billion ringgit (253.22 million U.S. dollars) in December 2022, an increase of 1.5 percent as compared to 1.07 billion ringgit (248.58 million U.S. dollars) in a month earlier.
Total stocks of natural rubber in December 2022 increased by 4.1 percent to 201,359 tons as compared to 193,396 tons in the previous month.
The performance of the fourth quarter of 2022 showed natural rubber production slipped 18.5 percent to 90,399 tons from 110,969 tons in the third quarter.
The annual performance of Malaysia's natural rubber production in the fourth quarter of 2022 recorded a decrease of 21.6 percent as compared to 115,310 tons in 2021.
The overall performance of natural rubber production in 2022 showed a decrease of 19.7 percent to 377,047 tonnes, as compared to 469,669 tons in 2021. ■