Thailand approves US$792 million in subsidies for rubber farmers, the biggest casualty of US-China trade war

Thailand, the world’s largest rubber producer, has seen its exports plummet as the tariff war between Washington and Beijing rages on

In addition to providing short-term income guarantees to farmers, the Thai government is also looking to widen its export markets to reduce reliance on China

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A Thai worker cuts out stains from a raw rubber sheet at a factory in Rayong province. File photo: AFP

Published: 8:00am, 25 Oct 2019Updated: 10:03am, 25 Oct 2019

Yot Kongyarit, who is in his 60s, owns about 8,000 square metres – an area slightly larger than a football field – of rubber farming land in Thailand’s southern province of Songkhla.

This month, he registered with the government to get a price guarantee for his production, after the Thai cabinet on October 15 approved a 24-billion-baht (US$792 million) budget for the first phase of income-guarantee subsidy for rubber growers.

The scheme aims to ensure 1.4 million rubber farmers have a stable income for six months, until March next year. It comes as rubber farmers have been hard hit by the US-China trade war that has depressed global demand and pushed down prices.

Thailand is the world’s largest producer of rubber. Rubber tappers in the country, who harvest latex at night or before dawn, refer to the liquid that seeps out of trees as “white gold”.

A worker collects latex at a rubber plantation in Thailand. File photo: AFP

But since Washington and Beijing began a series of tit-for-tat tariffs last year, Chinese demand for rubber has plummeted.