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China rubber industry urges lower import tariffs

BEIJING, Aug 19 (Reuters) - China's rubber industry has urged the government to cut rubber import tariffs from 20 to 12 percent to cool overheated domestic prices, a senior industry official said on Tuesday.

"The industry shares the view that we should have a bigger import quota and the tariff should be lower," Fan Rende, secretary general of the China Rubber Industry Association, told Reuters.

Fan said domestic natural rubber production could only meet one third of demand of 1.5 million tonnes this year.

Rubber prices in China, the world's second biggest consumer of the commodity, have risen more than 60 percent to a record 14,000 yuan ($1,692) per tonne since March, the association said at its Web site at www.cria.org.cn.

Tyres are a booming market. Output over the first seven months of the year in the world's fastest growing major car market leapt 94.8 percent year on year to 1.07 million.

Fan said the government had not yet agreed to increase the rubber import quota. China set the 2003 natural rubber quota at 850,000 tonnes.

"We still hope the government will agree," he said without elaborating.

China's natural rubber imports rose 54.8 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2003 to 600,000 tonnes.

($1=8.276 Yuan)