Picnic of medical gloves made from rubber latex is anticipated to proceed its decline this 12 months, as Covid-19 infections ease and some nations impose bans on pure rubber gloves because of allergy considerations, according to the Office of Industrial Economics (OIE).
The decline in glove exports has been vital since last yr, impacting Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, said Warawan Chitaroon, director-general of the OIE. She advised Thai medical glove producers to adapt to the altering market and seek new export alternatives.
The US, a serious market for medical glove exports, has banned the import of products created from pure rubber latex. Similar bans have additionally been carried out in components of Europe and the Middle East. In 2021, China, Japan, and South Korea have been Thailand’s major customers, as per the Commerce Ministry.
Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia are among the world’s leading rubber plantation international locations as a result of their appropriate climate for rubber timber. The world unfold of the pandemic in 2020 led to a surge in demand for medical gloves, with Thailand’s manufacturing capacity reaching 60 to 70 billion items annually in the course of the pandemic.
The OIE has noted that rubber products are one of many sectors the place manufacturing has decreased over the previous ten months, along with exhausting disk drives, plastic beads, steel and iron, garments, and textiles.
“These declines in these industries have been among the components that caused a drop within the Manufacturing Production Index (MPI) in April,” stated Warawan.
The April MPI fell 8.14% year-on-year to 83.5 points, marking the seventh consecutive decline since October last year and the bottom in 34 months. Other contributing factors included a slowdown in exports because of reduced buy orders and manufacturing facility closures during the Songkran holidays, reviews Bangkok Post..