The Outlook for Indian Rubber Industry

Rubber has an important role to play in the growing Indian economy. And, why not? We are the third largest producer and fourth largest consumer of rubber in the world. Hence, the significance of the rubber industry in India is huge.

Rubber Finds Applications in Numerous Products

Natural and synthetic rubber are widely used in a variety of things. From flooring material and automation industry to household appliances, rubber is used in almost everything. There are many testing labs in Delhi & all over India to ensure good quality of rubber is produced as per appropriate industrial practices. With an annual rubber production between 6-7 lakh tons amounting to Rs. 3,000 crores, the turnover of the Indian rubber industry is about Rs. 12,000 crores. No wonder, this makes us lead in the world. Why Indian rubber industry is rapidly growing is also substantiated by the fact that our consumption of natural and synthetic rubber is increasing annually. There was an increase of 5% and 8.2% of natural and synthetic rubber, respectively.

The scope of rubber applications, be it natural or synthetic is so huge that we need rubber testing labs to check for its quality and performance. A polymer testing lab helps a rubber industry identify all the risks that may come from the failure of a poor product.

One of the major industries that heavily relies on the production of rubber is the automation industry. Along with China, USA, Japan, Germany, and South Korea, India also manufacturers automobiles. With the increased demand for rubber parts, the Indian rubber industry has been quite instrumental in the overall growth of the automation industry.

The use of rubber is all invasive across industries. There is not a single thing in our life that has not been made with rubber be it natural or synthetic. Without rubber, there is no transport, no mining and no energy. Infect, manufacturing industries like that of toys, laptops and others rely a lot on Indian rubber to meet their ends. It’s important to note that a plastic testing lab maintains the quality assurance by conducting various tests on these appliances.

Challenges Faced by The Rubber Industry

Despite being a flourishing industry, there are still a few challenges that the Indian rubber industry faces. Several MSME units lack perfect techniques required for preparing rubber in this dynamically growing business. Thus, it’s important to beat the challenges if we want to become the leader of this industry; Chief operational challenges, innovation needs, marketing challenges, and new product development are a few challenges we can recollect. Besides these, there are budget constraints, increased labor costs, and stiff competition that need to be handled.

The Way Forward

In order to give the required boost to this industry, our government should take stringent steps to strengthen small and medium-sized businesses. It should make the Indian rubber industry an imperative component of the ‘Make in India’ initiative so that we can produce it here and sell it across the globe. Reforms should be implemented by the government to help the manufacturing industry flourish and be globally competitive.

A think tank has also been created where various leaders and tycoons from the rubber industry can come to share their views and ideas on Vision 2025 of the Indian rubber industry with major focus being MSMEs.

The future of the Indian rubber industry looks quite promising. One can already sense the significance of rubber from its huge dependency of other industries have on it. With increasing population and needs, the demand of rubber industry is only going to increase. One should not forget that the core to profitability lies in the ability to satisfy the needs of the customer. The rubber manufacturing plants will have to come with strategies to meet the increasing demands. All rubber businesses, big or small, should join hands to tackle any turbulence for sustainable growth. Promoting trade both within the country and across the globe is also the need of the hour.