Indian planters urge Thai FTA plan rethink

Mint reports

Fears of concessional import of natural rubber from Thailand under the proposed free trade agreement (FTA) has caused a flutter in the rubber sector with growers and traders requesting the Centre to desist from any such move.

United Planters Association of South India (Upasi) president J.K. Thomas has, in a representation to the government, requested it to reconsider the move to allow cheap import of rubber from Thailand.

Thomas said he feared that the agreement would mean delisting rubber from the sensitive list which would bring down the present import tariff from 20% to 5%.
Indian Rubber Dealers’ Federation vice-president N. Radhakrishnan noted that Thailand is the largest natural rubber producer with an annual production of around 32 lakh tonnes. Both groups claim that the move would seriously affect the livelihood of small and marginal growers who account for 90% of the more than one million growers producing 8.03 lakh tonne of rubber annually.