REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, MEDAN--Until this year the North Sumatra's rubber was shipped mainly to China, United States and Japan as the three biggest export destinations.

"Despite slowing GDP growth in US and China, those two, and so is Japan, are still the largest buyers of North Sumatra's rubber," said Eddy Irwansyah, secretary of Rubber Association of Indonesia (Gapkindo) North Sumatra chapter on Thursday.

North Sumatra was one of the largest rubber producing areas in Indonesia--world's second largest rubber producer after Sri Lanka.

He admitted the rubber plantation in Indonesia was facing a little downturn due to slowing American and Chinese demand, although there was decrease in prices.

He found this situation, however, understandable since the slowing economic growth has given impact to many business sectors. "They still dominate our rubber export though."

The total volumes of rubber shipped from North Sumatra, from January to August 2013 have reached 291.447 tons. Eddy gave no specific detail about the export volumes to each country. The volumes were slightly dropped 0.81 percent from 293.825 tons in 2012.

Chairman of Association of Indonesian Employers, North Sumatra chapter, Parlindungan Purba said most of Indonesian export commodities prices and volumes have plummeted on global economic crisis. Whereas, North Sumatra still relied on commodities trading as its foreign exchange reserves.

"This situations shows our government and the businessmen a good lesson, about the importance of developing secondary industry that encourage the domestic market's absorption."

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