IRSG World Rubber Industry Outlook (WRIO) is now available

Singapore – The International Rubber Study Group (IRSG) is an International Body dedicated to increase the transparency of the world rubber market and strengthening the international cooperation on rubber issues. The IRSG Secretariat publishes comprehensive data on production, usage, trade and prices- covering both natural rubber (NR) and synthetic rubber (SR). On a biannual basis the World Rubber Industry Outlook (WRIO) presents the latest long-term forecasts for the next ten years, covering the world economy as well as the automotive, tyre and rubber sectors.
The latest edition of the World Rubber Industry Outlook (WRIO) is now available. The current forecast in WRIO comprises two economic scenarios: Base Case Scenario rooted from the IMF’s base line GDP forecast; Downside Scenario which mainly reflects the economic damage from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, elevated inflation worldwide and subsequent tightening in the global financial conditions. Advanced economies seem to be more negatively impacted than emerging market economies and a gradual recovery back toward Base Scenario will only commence from 2026.
Coming out from the deep contraction in 2020, strong recovery in advanced economies and emerging markets such as China and India helped the world rubber demand to recover by 11% to 29.88 million tonnes in 2021, exceeding the pre-pandemic level. The strong rebound was supported by pent-up demand from both tyre and non-tyre sectors. Total rubber demand is estimated to grow by only 1.8% this year under the Base Scenario, lower than our last forecast in December 2021. A deceleration in the global economic growth in 2022 due to several external shocks has resulted an adverse impact on the world rubber consumption mainly caused by steeper deceleration for tyre sector. Total rubber demand is forecast to accelerate to 2.8% in 2023 and expected to grow on an average by 2.4% during 2023-2031 period.
The global NR demand recovered strongly by 10.9% in 2021, reaching 14.07 million tonnes, owing to sharp recovery expected in CV replacement segment in the mature and emerging markets. NR demand is forecast to decelerate to 1.9% in 2022 and 2.8 in 2023 mainly due to the deceleration in China’s demand. The world SR demand recorded a solid recovery of 11.1% in 2021 with total consumption reached 15.81 million tonnes (y-o-y) and is forecast to further grow by 1.7% in 2022 and 2.8% in 2023, similar to what we are expecting for the NR sector.
Natural rubber production recovered by 5.4% in 2021, reaching 13.77 million tonnes, which is still lower than its 2018 peak. NR supply is estimated to expand by 4.3% in 2022, reaching 14.36 million tonnes, supported by the expansion in Mekong countries and Côte d’Ivoire which is now the fourth largest NR producing country. Production is forecast to further
expand by 2.9% in 2023. Lower rate of new and re-planting than the market needed is likely to tighten the market balance in the medium to longer-term in the absence of financial support to small farmers encouraging replanting and for tapping the un-tapped mature area.