22 November 1984 Malaysia's rubber industry developing

Malaysia was turning to processing and manufacturing rubber to meet competition from synthetics produced by the developed countries, the Director of the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia, Dr Ani Arope, said during a visit to Lincoln College.

Dr Ani Arope who graduated from Lincoln College at the end of the 1950s with a Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree was making his first visit since then.

He said Malaysia faced competition from synthetic rubber as New Zealand wool had to compete with synthetic fibres.

Raw rubber had to be graded and be technically specified so that people knew exactly what they were getting.

"Before it was Malaysian raw rubber, and this could be anything, but today you are competing with the people in the developed countries," he said.

"You just have to come up with something good, so there is a lot of processing research.

"We are coming out with new grades of rubber and specialised uses of rubber, such as tyres.

"Apparently natural rubber does better in cold countries that in the tropics, but instead of having summer tyres and winter tyres, we say, look, this is a standard tyre.

"You have got to process the thing differently."

Dr Ani Arope most rubber went into making tyres, and radial tyres used more natural rubber.

Malaysia was moving into tyre manufacturing, was already exporting tractor tyres to Australia, and was a net exporter of aviation tyres.

"For domestic tyres we are only about 80 per cent, because people still like to have imported tyres," he said.

"They believe that anything that sounds exotic is good; anything that sounds local is not good."

Dr Ani Arope said Malaysia produced 1.5 million tonnes of rubber a year but had only reached 60,000 tonnes in manufactured goods.

"I think we should be able to have a higher value added to products: a kilo of rubber sells for $2 but a kilo of balloons may even sell for $200."

Making surgical gloves was not high technology, and Malaysia had a very intelligent and adaptable labour force, he said.

Raw materials were there, although some adjustments had to be made for fuel costs and other things.

"Even if outsiders want to come in and help us jointly develop these things with us they are welcome, so long as there are checks and balances in the system."

Dr Ani Arope said that Malaysia today was in a position similar to that in Europe in the 1840s.

Forty per cent of the people were in farming, and then they started moving out into the cities.

Universities and schools produced about 100,000 graduates a year, and they were not going back into farming.

So a lot of young people were coming on to the labour market so the emphasis should be on manufacturing, he said.

People were moving out of farming and the only way higher wages could be paid was to increase productivity.

Mechanical harvesting of rubber trees was one way to increase production by mechanised tapping.

Dr Ani Arope said that Malaysia had 4.2 million acres of rubber so sheep were used to keep the grass down between rubber trees.

"There is plenty of grass under rubber trees, so you have a lot to mow with 4.2 million acres, and the grass competes for moisture and fertiliser," he said.

"You can't afford to put people in to cut grass. That would be too darned expensive. So we put in sheep. That's sheep labour, and it's not unionised.

"I don't know what breed the sheep are, but they were brought in by the Afghans about a hundred years ago.

"The sheep are grown in that environment, and we have crossed them with the heavier Dorset Horns.

"The important things is that they are doing the work for us," he said.