Friday 29 Mar 2024
By
main news image

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian rubber glove makers, who control about 63% of the global rubber glove supply market, are urging the government to extend and expand the reinvestment allowance to help the industry fully automate and modernise its manufacturing plants.

In a statement, the Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers Association 

(Margma) president Denis Low Jau Foo said this strive for automation and modernisation is a costly affair.

“Margma acknowledges that its members are constantly ploughing back at least RM400 [million] to RM600 million annually since year 2000 as reinvestment in new plants, [as] it is incumbent upon the industry to always expand to meet the ever-growing demand,” he said.

“This is where we seek the government to come forward to hold our hands to sail through this renewal exercise in order to sustain and maintain our global leadership in the supply of medical and surgical gloves,” said Low.

Low said both the government and the industry will “greatly benefit” if the reinvestment allowance tenure is extended, and expanded to cover older plants that are also being modernised for automation.

Low pointed out that the industry exported RM13.28 billion worth of gloves last year, and that this year, as at June, the industry had achieved exports worth RM7.95 billion, with the full year’s tally estimated to touch RM16.2 billion.

“This is a whopping increase of about 24.6% in terms of revenue gained for the nation, and mostly in US dollars too,” Low said.

As for quantity, exports of rubber gloves rose about 15.8% year-on-year for the January to June period to 35.279 billion pairs, compared with 30.463 billion pairs in the same period last year. This year’s full export volume could near 150 billion pieces, he said.

The industry has also been encouraged by the government to continue embarking on automating the industry to be less reliant on foreign workers and to modernise its facilities to be further ahead of competitors, he said.

“We are very grateful and await the quick deliverance of the new foreign workers policy as announced by Deputy Home Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed, and we urge the relevant officers to assist and cooperate with us,” he said.

      Print
      Text Size
      Share