The Rubber Planters Association of Liberia (RPAL) justifies that allowing the unprocessed export of natural rubber will undermine Liberia’s quota and participation in the Association of Natural Rubber-Producing Countries (ANRPCI) and the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPNSR).
The group said the Government of Liberia is in no error in banning the export of unprocessed rubber because Article 5 of the Liberian Constitution regarding safeguarding the economy and sustaining value addition are critical points for government’s decision to ban unprocessed rubber exports.
At their press conference on Tuesday, February 27, the group which is a major actor in the rubber sector reiterated its unanimous support in favor of the ban because according to them, exporting of unprocessed rubber out of Liberia denies the government of generating needful taxes and prevent locals the opportunities of being employed.
At least, Liberia can boast of four factories that are engaged in exporting processed rubber which include Jeety Rubber Factory, Firestone Rubber Plantation, Liberia Agriculture Company (LAC) and the Lee Group where thousands of Liberians are employed and they can only maintain those workforce and meet their production targets if the ban on unprocessed rubber remained in place, the group assumed.
Compared to Liberia, neighbouring Ivory Coast which have over a dozen of rubber factories imposed ban on the export of unprocessed rubber on November 21, 2023 as a means of protecting the local domestic companies who rely on these locally produce rubber latex for protection to stay in business.
Additionally, a National Congress of the Rubber Planters Association of Liberia was convened on February 23, 2024 on Cooper Farm, Montserrado County and the group unanimously reaffirmed its unequivocal support for Executive Order 124 which bans unprocessed rubber export.
Immediate past Liberian President George Manneh Weah issued the Executive Order nearing the end of his administration, and it remains in force under current President Joseph Nyumah Boakai’s regime.
President Weah is not alone, former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf issued series of executive orders banning unprocessed rubber export aimed at strengthening the local sector.
According to RPAL, unrestricted export of unprocessed rubber supersedes the sector’s productivity and for more than five years, the sector has not exported more than 250,000 metric tons of processed rubber.
RPAL said it was envisaged by 2020 that producers would hit 350,000 metric tons of rubber.
“The exportation of unprocessed nature from Liberia undermines the nation’s GDP. The commodity ends in Nigeria or other countries in the subregion buyers which process the commodity and export same,” the group stated.
It continued that the so-called consortium of rubber actors are nonfarmers or nonproducers but middlemen that have been used by the exporters who withhold subscription fees from farmers without remittance to the RPAL and Rubber Development Fund Incorporated (RDFI).
According to RPAL, the Government of Cote D’ Ivoire has legislated a ban on the exportation of unprocessed natural rubber including Ghana’s increasing export earnings.
“Unless value addition is upheld, promoted, and sustained, the sector risk declines,” it warns.
RPAL’s statement disclosed that the Delegates in the Convention Assembled in Cooper Farm, Todee District, Montserrado County, petitioned the Legislature to enact a law to prohibit the export of unprocessed natural rubber.
Regarding the economic benefits, RPAl said agriculture, including forestry, is the primary livelihood for more than 60 percent of Liberia’s population and accounted for 31 percent of Liberia’s 2021 real gross domestic product (GDP).
He emphasized that rubber is a dominant revenue generator, accounting for 12.5 percent of the total export receipts in 2021 while 2. 16% of the revenue of Liberia is generated from the rubber industry and the exportation of Unprocessed Natural Rubber undermines value addition, diminishes revenue adversely impacts the economy.
“Note that 16% of the revenue of Liberia various estimates put the number of people employed by commercial rubber farms at 20,000 and the number of smallholder households involved in growing rubber trees at 35,00,” said RPAL.
Globally, the RPAL noted, that importing and exporting raw materials can influence the GDP, its exchange rate, and its level of inflation and interest rate.
RPAL believes that many smallholder farmers face problems or challenges with the drop-down of rubber prices with the prices of raw materials always depreciating because of no value, when the price of finished rubber is better.
