Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia plan to cut natural rubber exports by a a total of 300,000 mt from October 1 for six months, news reports said Thursday.
About 60%, or 180,000 mt, of the cut will come in the first three months -- October-December -- and the remainder in the subsequent three months, the reports said citing the International Tripartite Rubber Council.
Details on how the cuts would be implemented were not available.
The reports also said the ITRC had agreed to hasten a process to cut down 100,000 hectares of ageing rubber trees, which will lead to an additional reduction of exports of 150,000 mt.
The plan for the cuts follows an agreement reached by the three countries on August 16 to initiate an Agreed Export Tonnage Scheme to reduce 300,000 mt in natural rubber exports and a further 150,000 mt via a replanting program.
In 2011, the three countries exported about 7.1 million mt of natural rubber, so the 300,000 mt cut represents about 4% of their overall exports, according to statistics from the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries.
