Rubber market ecosystem changed significantly over the years
PR
KOTTAYAM, April 27 2022: The Rubber Board intends to start an electronic trade platform to improve the marketing efficacy of participants in the supply chain of natural rubber. Satish Sharma, Chairman of the Automobile Tyre Manufacturers Association, will launch the logo ‘mRube’ prepared as part of this e-market on April 28 through a virtual meeting at Rubber Board, Kottayam. Representatives from all rubber stakeholder groups will attend the meeting. 'e-market' will go Live probably in the second week of May 2022. 
India's natural Rubber trade possesses an innate advantage of high-level marketing efficiency owing to its coherent supply chain. The rubber market ecosystem has changed significantly over the years with changing patterns of demand in terms of quality and quantity from the consuming sector. Though price realization is relatively good for producers of quality rubber, large volumes of ungraded rubber traded are in the country.
These producers are losing their opportunity for want of proper market awareness. There are also cases where growers and co-operatives find it difficult to sell rubber as per quality grades to the final consumer, which often dissuades them from producing quality material. The size of the dealer fraternity is also seen shrinking. In 2000, there were 10,512 active rubber dealers in the country, which came down to 9741 in 2010. In 2020, the count shrunk to 7135, which is quite alarming.
In view of this, the Board proposes to set up an electronic trading platform to improve the efficacy of the domestic supply chain for Natural Rubber. The electronic trading platform is contemplated to complement the existing trade system by bringing in more transparency and market visibility.
It is expected that e-trade could bring more business to the existing rubber dealers, processors and manufacturers by reaching out to new sellers/ buyers, even in far-off places.
The e-trade platform is branded as “mRube’ and M/s i- Sourcing Technologies Pvt Ltd Ahmadabad is the technology partner for developing this electronic trade platform. The software development for this electronic market is over, and final testing is in progress.
The electronic market follows a simple one-time registration for users. Users shall input their Rubber Board license number, and the system will fetch the rest of their details from the Rubber Board licensing portal, and an OTP based validation will complete the registration.
‘mRube’ attempts to figure out certain impending issues in the current rubber marketing system. Despite being used in the manufacture of products with critical importance like automobile tyres & tubes, surgical and pharmaceutical products there is no systematic arrangement for certifying the quality of rubber traded in the country. In the proposed electronic market, Rubber Board has a system for assaying the quality of rubber, which will be a game-changer in the domestic NR trade.
Besides this, Rubber Board has joined hands with M/s Federal Bank Ltd and M/s ICICI Bank Ltd. to operate the payment gateway and escrow account, which will nullify the payment risk of buyers and sellers involved in trade through this portal.
For the first time in the history of commodity trade, either online or offline, banks had agreed to finance “zero interest rate” advances to sellers. Board has made arrangements with two partnering banks to extend zero interest rate facility to rubber sellers trading through this e-market.
Also, ‘mRube’ allows users to filter out buyers and sellers according to their geographical location, quantity, grade of rubber, customer ratings etc. The buyers and sellers can upload their offers, and there is a provision for quoting counter-offers before confirming the trade.
Personalized trade pages are available for those buyers whose purchases are from their empanelled vendors. A unique feature built into the system is the generation of legalized trade contacts signed using DSC.
The Android and ios versions of e-market mobile applications are also ready for use.