Year before last, India exported rubber products worth Rs 900 crore. The annual turnover of rubber industry in India was Rs 7500 crore in the organised sector and another Rs 2500 crore in the unorganised sector.

Giving an overview of the rubber industry, Zachariah said India now produced six lakh tonnes of natural rubber annually and the entire production was consumed within the country, including 65 per cent by the tyre industry. India registered the highest productivity of 1400 kg of natural rubber per hectare. The total acreage under rubber plantation in the country now was five lakh hectares. The worldwide figure is 9.28 million hectares.

The worldwideproduction of natural rubber was 6.25 million tonnes. Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia are the other leading natural rubber producing countries.

Meanwhile, International Rubber Conference Organisation (IRCO) is organising its three-day official conference and exhibition here from December 7.

Being held in India for the first time, it will be inaugurated by M Karunanidhi, chief minister of Tamil Nadu. The exhibition will be inaugurated opened by KM Mammen Mappillai, chairman and managing director, MRF Ltd, the chief patron for this conference, Zachariah George, chairman of IRI told reporters. On show will be the latest raw materials, machinery, services, testing equipment and products.

The conference will have separate sessions on various topics such as polymers and polymerisation, reinforcing materials, aging, automobile tyres & tubes, quality standards and environmental issues. There will be a special session on natural rubber.

At the exhibition venue, workshops will be conducted with expertspresenting papers on topics such as latex dipped goods manufacture, automotive components and moulding, footwear and automobile tubes. The prominent exhibitors are Bayer, Bekaert, DuPont, SBM Chemicals, Sepulchre Brothers, Helar Marketing, Mahindra & Mahindra, MRF, Rubber Board, Inko, Repsol, HW Wallace, Flexsys, Kettlitz, TSE Industries and Apar.

The Indian rubber industry is currently the 4th largest consumer of elastomers and is gearing up to face international competition and maintain global standards of quality and performance.

IRCO is a non-governmental organisation comprising of representatives from 18 countries worldwide. The Indian Rubber Institute (IRI), which has over 2,000 members, has its headquarters at Calcutta with seven main branches spread across India. The primary objective of this institute is to provide scientific and technical information and promote human resources development through educational activities and training of technologies for the rapidly growing elastomer industry.