Market volume

The diversity of rubber’s properties and varieties and its still far from exhausted application potential have ensured sustained growth in sales on international markets for many years. In particular, economically dynamic markets and countries in Asia such as China and India along with Russia, Eastern Europe and Latin America are developing into strong customers in the rubber industry and strong production locations.

Including rubbers for the tire industry, manufacturers produced 13,596,000 metric tons of synthetic rubbers across the world in 2007, according to estimates by the International Rubber Study Group; consumption amounted to 13,197,000 metric tons. The largest consumer was Asia/Oceania with 6,369,000 metric tons (production: 5,994,000 metric tons), followed by North America (consumption: 2,140,000 metric tons, production: 2,790,000 metric tons) and the EU (consumption: 2,711,000 metric tons, production: 2,774,000 metric tons).