Myanmar is planning to double the hectarage of rubber to attain nearly 400,000 hectares in the next fiscal year of 2007-08 beginning from April, the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Sunday.

Out of its rubber production, Myanmar exported about 30,000 tons of rubber to China and Singapore annually, with China standing as Myanmar's largest rubber export market, the report said.

The country's rubber output for 2006-07 stood 61,717 tons out of 302,053 hectares cultivated, while the output for 2005-06 was nearly 60,000 tons out of 226,171 hectares grown, according to official statistics.

Meanwhile, Myanmar has worked out a five-year-wise program to grow rubber with a projected cultivated area to reach 405,000 hectares and its output to 146,700 tons by the year 2020 and 607, 500 hectares and 226,800 tons respectively by 2030.

Myanmar's rubber cultivation revived after 1988 due to permission granted to national entrepreneurs to grow and trade the crop freely.

In the past, rubber was grown only in Myanmar's southern Tanintharyi division and Mon state but now it has extended to such border areas as in Kachin state and Shan state as well as Rakhine state and Sagaing division.

Rubber, along with jute, cotton, edible crop, stands a main industrial crop in Myanmar.

Source: Xinhua