China marks centenary of rubber
By Liu Li (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-09-01 02:13

A series of events will be held early next month in Yunnan Province to mark the centenary the natural rubber industry in China.

More than 8,000 rubber trees were planted in the Yingjiang County of Southwest China province in 1904. It was the first batch successfully planted in the country.

The Brazilian rubber trees were introduced by an official from Singapore, Dao Anren.

One of those trees is still alive.

The celebrations planned include a gathering on September 6 in Kunming, the provincial capital, a seminar on the development of China's natural rubber industry and a televised documentary to be broadcast through central and local television stations, said Vice-Agriculture Minister Zhang Baowen at a press conference in Beijing.

The celebrations are being organized by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Yunnan provincial government and the provincial government of Hainan, another major rubber producing region.

China's natural rubber output reached 565,000 tons in 2003, with a planting area of 661,000 hectares in Yunnan and South China's Guangdong and Hainan provinces.

The output and planting areas are the fifth largest in the world, said Zhang.

That same year China became the world's top importer and consumer of rubber, using 1.7 million tons.

"Nearly 1.1 million tons were imported," said Yang Shaopin, director of the Farms and Land Reclamation Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture.

The huge consumption of natural rubber is due to the increase in automobile production. The auto output in China was more than 4.4 million, resulting in an annual increase of 40 per cent in the demand for natural rubber.

Yang said efforts will be stepped up to enlarge the planting areas and raise the per unit area yield.

At the same time, the central government plans to increase the investment in natural rubber development but no figures have been set yet.

China has invested less than 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) in the natural rubber industry in the past 50 years, said Yang.

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