China and India Drives Growth in the Global Ribbed Smoked Sheet Market, According to New Report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc.

GIA announces the release of a comprehensive global report on Ribbed Smoked Sheet markets. The global consumption of Ribbed Smoked Sheet (RSS) is projected to reach 5.6 million metric tons by 2018, primarily driven by rapid increase in demand from emerging markets such as China and India. RSS market across the globe witnessed strong recovery from the downward pressures of economic recession. The automobile sector’s recovery was initiated in the middle of 2009 and was strongly supported by an increase in Government spending as well as inventory rebuilding worldwide through various support measures aimed at increasing automobile sales. Consequently, demand for tires increased in tandem, leading to an increase in consumption of RSS. Moreover, the pent up demand for replacement tires, which were postponed or delayed during the recession also resulted in increase in demand for tires.
The versatile nature of natural rubber, coupled with advantages over synthetic rubber makes natural rubber competitive with alternatives. Additionally, increasing prices of oil are also increasing the cost competitiveness of natural rubber. As such, demand for natural rubber in primary applications; such as tire manufacturing is not expected face major threat from synthetic rubber. Demand for natural rubber is expected to move in line with demand for automotive tires. Globally, natural rubber is one of the most widely used elastomers owing to its high tensile strength, good green strength, low heat build-up, high resilience, and other unmatchable properties. Natural rubber is produced from the Hevea brasiliensis trees, both in the form of field coagulum as well as latex. While field coagulum is the auto-coagulated latex in the coagulation cups or on the tapping panel, latex is a milky-white dispersion of rubber in water. Natural rubber, which is highly susceptible to degradation due to contamination, is processed for to form Concentrated Latex, Technically Specified Rubber (TSR), and Ribbed Smoked Sheet (RSS) for better marketing and storage. Smoked sheets are among the most popular and oldest forms of natural rubber. Two types of sheets are popular in the international market namely, Air Dried Sheets (ADS) and Ribbed Smoked Sheets (RSS). Among the two, RSS is the most popular. The surface of the ribbed smoked sheet consists of crisscross rib markings, thereby the name ribbed smoked sheet.
Rising awareness among consumers about environmental conservation is expected brighten the prospects for natural rubber and in turn, for ribbed smoked sheets in the near future. Due to rapid depletion of petrochemical resources, consumers are displaying avid interest towards purchasing green tires or tires manufactured from natural rubber and other renewable resources. Natural rubber is considered more eco-friendly and superior in quality as compared with synthetic rubber, therefore its use in manufacturing rubber bands, surgical gloves and drapes, contraceptives, nipples on baby bottles, shoe soles, as well as carpet backing is displaying a phenomenal increase.