Cos reduce natural rubber consumption

The consumption of natural rubber has been affected by the constant increase in the prices of natural rubber where the replacement of natural rubber by synthetic rubber and the fresh trends in the transportation sector may be the reason for this change.
Meanwhile, the consumption of natural rubber by all user industries declined by 3% in November 2010 while the provisional figures state that in December it fell by 1.3%.
The consumption by tyre sector witnessed a 4.3% fall in November and a 3% decline in December which pointed towards a similar replacement of natural rubber by synthetic.
Rajiv Budhraja, director general, Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association said that previously, they used to consume 74% natural rubber and 26% synthetic rubber.

(Source: http://money.oneindia.in/news/2011/01/17/cos-reduce-natural-rubber-consumption.html)