Rio, 6/25/2004 (Agência Brasil) - Until the 1950s, Brazil was the world leader in rubber production, with 90% of the planet's production. Talk about a reversal of fortune! Today Brazilian rubber production is a measly 100,000 tons, or 1.3% of world production which is running at 5.7 million tons. At the moment, Asia is the rubber king, with Malaysia, China, Thailand and Indonesia producing 95% of all the rubber in the world.

According to Ciriaca do Carmo, an agronomist at the Brazilian Farm Research Corporation (Embrapa), the reasons Brazil no longer is a big rubber producer are: lack of government policy, globalization and high domestic production costs which are mainly due to the tax burden and pricing problems. There was also a serious difficulty with a rubber tree disease. As a result of all this, Brazil imports 60% of its natural rubber needs.

On the other hand, nowadays Brazil is a big producer of synthetic rubber.

Embrapa is presently working on a series of projects to restart large-scale rubber production and make the country self sufficient. Today a seminar in Rio de Janeiro will discuss the issue.

(Translator:Allen Bennett)