Rubber Gloves: Call for More innovation

The Deputy Prime Minister, YB Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, lauded the local rubber industry for managing to capture more than 50% of the global export market, has called for more innovation in business processes and operations to promote further productivity improvements.

Productivity per worker in the sector has increased from 500,000 per year in 1998 compared to 2.6 million gloves per year in 2014.

Concurrent with the increase in productivity, export earnings per worker has also increased from RM51,000 per year in 1993 to RM265,000 per year in 2013.

The industry in 2014 is on track to provide employment to more than 41,000 workers," he added, when addressing the 7th International Rubber Glove Conference and Exhibition (IRGCE) here at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre yesterday.

The Malaysian rubber industry accounted for 54% of the global export value of US$6.2 billion (RM19.6 billion).

In 2013 Malaysia exported a total of US$4.53 billion worth of rubber products, with rubber gloves making up US$3.3 billion. These gloves are exported to more than 190 countries.

"In this regard, total export earnings of the industry had grew by a significant 282% from US$1.04 billion (RM3.33 billion) in 2002," he said, adding that the glove exports from Malaysia accounts for close to 80% of the total export earnings of the rubber product sector.

 /theSUN 03-09-2014

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