The board has set up a special cell under a senior official to chalk out a strategy to promote export of rubber and its various products. It has also turned down the proposal by several of its director board members to stop immediately the subsidy extended to the new plantations and replantations.

Top sources in the Rubber Board told The Financial Express that the director board, which met at Kottayam recently, decided to promote aggressively the exports of natural rubber and products from the country. This assumes significance as despite several announcements by the centre and state governments, the export of natural rubber from the country has failed to pick up so far.

The Exim policy announced by the central government has entrusted rubber board with the taskof promoting rubber exports. However, the board was so far concentrating only on the enhancement of production of the commodity.

Following a sharp fall in prices there were demands from different quarters to ship the excess quantity to abroad to prevent further fall in prices.

The Rubber Board was also under pressure from different quarters to give top priority for exports. Following this, the board meeting decided to set up a separate cell to look after the export promotion of both natural rubber and rubber products.

The export promotional cell headed by the technical director of the Board would explore various possibilities to kick start the export of natural rubber and rubber products.

The export promotion cell would soon come out with a concrete strategy charting the export potential of natural rubber. The cell is likely to give more emphasis to value addition and quality to boost exports, sources said.

The board has also shot down the demand of a section of its members to stop the subsidy givento farmers for new planting and replanting with immediate effect.

The growers argued that there had already been excess production of the commodity in the country which pulled down the prices from a high of 60 per kg two years ago to the current level of below Rs 30 per kg. Sources said this was for the first time that the growers demanded the withdrawal of incentives for production.

The board had instituted the subsidy to provide incentives for increasing production in the traditional areas and setting up rubber plantations in non-traditional areas.

However, the board chairman said it was suicidal to stop the subsidy now and convinced the members that after seven years there would be an actual deficit of natural rubber in the country. The ongoing replantation and new plantations were not going to affect the prices now since the yield would be coming to the market only after seven years.