The demand for natural rubber is set to go up further as the Indian economy is growing and the tyre industry, the main consumer of natural rubber, is also expanding in response to the fast-growing demand for vehicles, says R. Mukhopadhyay, chairman of the Indian Rubber Institute.
He told the media in Kochi on Wednesday, ahead of the two-day `IRCO Rubbercon 2024' conference organised by the IRI, that there was no let-up in demand for natural rubber. On the contrary, the demand was rising as the demand for trucks, buses, cars, scooters, and all sorts of vehicles was increasing.
The conference organisers noted that there was a misconception among rubber growers, especially in Kerala, that synthetic rubber was fast replacing NR and that this would eventually reduce the NR demand. They explained that different types of rubber (natural, synthetic etc.) had their own specific uses in the manufacture of tyres as well as non-tyre rubber products. Again, while truck tyres were made mostly of natural rubber, nearly three-fourths of the rubber used in passenger car tyres were synthetic.
Mukhopadhya said that since the rubber industry was expanding in tune with the growth of the Indian economy, the Kolkata-headquartered IRI was scaling up its operations to educate and train rubber professionals. The IRI, he noted, had set up a world-class centre of excellence in Mysore to support small and medium rubber industries.
P.K. Mohamed, general convenor of the Rubbercon event, said the Mysore centre, named after D. Banerjee, who is considered the father of rubber industries in India, would open in a few months. The centre, which partnered with the JSS Mahavidyapeetha, had already started functioning partially.
The centre aimed to give a helping hand to small and medium rubber industries by providing testing and product development services. It would give short-term advanced training to rubber professionals and also, in partnership with the Vidyapeeth, conduct research in synthetic and natural rubber.
The three-day Rubbercon 2024 event, held in collaboration with the International Rubber Conference Organisation (IRCO), will be opened on Thursday afternoon by the `missile woman' Tessy Thomas, who is currently the vice-chancellor of Nurul Islam Centre for Higher Education (NICHE). The conference, whose theme is `Sustainable development in the rubber industry: Challenges and opportunities,' will bring together a host of industry leaders, policymakers, researchers, and academics.
