Rubber Manufacturing in Malaysia: Resource-based Industrialization in Practice

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By C.C. Goldthorpe

Malaysia is a major rubber producing country, and the country's rubber manufacturing sector is a prime example of an industry based on a locally produced agricultural resource. In Rubber Manufacturing in Malaysia, C.C. Goldthorpe draws on industrial policy theory along with many years of practical experience to examine the growth of rubber manufacturing in Malaysia. Over the past century, a series of technological discoveries resulted in the worldwide rise of a rubber production industry that manufactures tyres for motor vehicles, engineering components, household gloves and medical products. Goldthorpe argues that the production of rubber goods has played a significant part in the transformation of the country from primary commodity producer to newly industrialized economy, a position he supports by tracing the historical development of rubber-based industrial production and the effects of government policies promoting industrialization.

Around 80 per cent of the country's rubber manufacturing companies are Malaysian owned, with foreign investment concentrated in production of industrial components and tyres. The industry has a dualistic structure, with joint venture and foreign manufacturers operating in a more capital-intensive way and employing a greater number of workers compared with local companies. Taken as a whole, the rubber industry is vertically integrated, with locally produced natural and synthetic rubbers used by the rubber manufacturing sector to produce latex products and general rubber goods for export markets.

"This excellent book portrays the history and present scope of Malaysian rubber manufacturing... The book is the first comprehensive study dealing with rubber manufacturing in Malaysia, and a valuable contribution on this ground alone." - Colin Barlow, Australian National University


C.C. Goldthorpe has 45 years experience in the natural rubber industry as a planter, agricultural project planning consultant, international civil servant and university researcher.



Publication Year: 2015
224 pages, 229mm x 152mm
Paperback
ISBN: 978-9971-69-836-2


NUS Press