International Rubber Study Group (IRSG) recently released statistics show that in recent years, global rubber consumption continues to grow steadily. 2017, global rubber consumption reached 28.277 million tons, year-on-year (the same below) growth of 3.0%.

Among them, China's rubber consumption accounted for 30%, ranking first in global rubber consumption for three consecutive years. India, Thailand, Vietnam and other emerging regions of Asia's rubber consumption also showed steady growth, and China together to pull the growth of global rubber consumption.

Statistics show that China's rubber consumption in that year was 9.432 million tons, an increase of 2.9%, following a 3.0% increase in 2016 over the previous year, and continued to grow at a firm pace, exceeding year-on-year performance for 2 consecutive years. According to the report, China's domestic automobile industry saw a steady growth in the production of cars and commercial vehicles, which in turn drove the growth in rubber consumption.

Ranked No. 2 in the U.S. rubber consumption of 2.843 million tons, basically flat. 2013 U.S. rubber consumption fell to 2.6 million tons, but after 2014 began to rebound, reflecting the recovery of the U.S. economy.

Ranked No. 3 India rubber consumption 1.679 million tons, an increase of 3.5%. In recent years, the size of the Indian car market has expanded dramatically, and new car sales are expected to surpass those of Japan by 2020. India's economic development in the emerging regions in the performance of the eye-catching, rubber consumption accordingly continued to grow.

Ranked No. 4 in Japan's rubber consumption of 1.556 million tons, a slight increase of 0.8%. In recent years, Japan's rubber consumption has shown a continuous decreasing trend. However, in 2017, led by automotive tires, automotive rubber hose, construction machinery and machine tools with high-pressure rubber hose market demand, after a lapse of several years and once again exceeded the year-on-year performance. However, it is difficult to predict whether Japan's domestic rubber consumption can take advantage of this significant growth.

Ranked No. 5 of Thailand's rubber consumption of 1.275 million tons, an increase of 10.7%. Thailand is accelerating the development of vehicle manufacturers and parts manufacturers as a global production base in Asia. In connection with this, rubber consumption in Thailand is expected to continue to expand.

Accordingly, the proportion of rubber consumption in the top 5 regions in terms of global rubber consumption reached about 60%.

In addition, among the top 15 regions in terms of rubber consumption, the region with high growth rate is Vietnam, which ranked 12th in 2016, with an increase of 20.5% in 2017. With its cheap labor, Vietnam has attracted electronic equipment manufacturers such as Japan and South Korea to invest in factories one after another, the report said. Vietnam is notable as a new production base in ASEAN, and future growth in rubber consumption is expected.

In Southeast Asia, Indonesia's rubber consumption ranked 6th with 971,800 tons, up 5.7% year-on-year; Malaysia ranked 8th with 890,300 tons, up 6.8% year-on-year, and its growth in rubber consumption mainly relies on the demand for automobiles, motorcycle manufacturing and automotive tires.

(Source: China Rubber Net, Author: Wang Yingbin)