A Comparative Analysis of Export Competition in Natural Rubber Among the Leading Exporters in Southeast Asia

Abstract

The study aimed to (1) study the natural rubber export competitiveness among the leading natural rubber exporters in Southeast Asia using the Balassa index of Revealed Comparative Advantage (2) examine and explain Thailand’s comparative advantage of natural rubber exporting in regard to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Secondary data recorded by the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database were collected to analyze with the descriptive analysis and Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA). The empirical results found that Indonesia and Thailand performed the highest RCA value on the overall natural rubber export, followed by Vietnam and Malaysia respectively. Thailand also performed the highest RCA value on latex rubber and smoked sheet rubber, while Indonesia performed the highest RCA value on Technically Specified Natural Rubber (TSNR). However, Indonesia was not in the competitive advantage in exporting latex rubber. Malaysia was not in the competitive advantage in exporting smoked sheet rubber.