Let’s work together for a sustainable natural rubber value chain
Ambassador Sheikh Mohammed Belal, Managing Director of the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) participated in a “Global Round Table: The Responsibilities of Nations and Stakeholders” in the natural rubber value chain virtually on May 25, 2022. The event was organized by International Rubber Study Group in Singapore as a part of their World Rubber Summit 2022.
Amb. Belal, in his statement, presented a power point highlighting the importance of natural rubber in the lives and living of millions of smallholders. Smallholders provide about 85% of world’s rubber supply and as such deserves much more attention and support of what they are getting now.
Amb. Belal shared with the participants about an instrument of impact financing - Development Impact Bond (DIB)- that CFC designed as it pursued an innovative project in the Peruvian Amazon forest involving ethnic community there.
Highlighting the massive problem of funding gap towards implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Amb. Belal shared the news of formulation of an ESG impact fund named “CIIF (Commodity Impact Investment Facility)” by the CFC and invite all public and private investors to come forward to invest in the CIIF and thereby make the natural rubber and value chain of other commodities, where poverty is deeply entranced, and transforming both the production and processing and assumption sustainable across the whole value chain.
Amb. Belal concluded by saying that as we continue to interact between markets and states, while leaving out the people, we ran the risk of making sustainability a matter of business, not a mission of purpose. It is time to combine with the purpose and make it sustainable in the long run.
Amb. Belal also took part at the Q&A session and explained the importance of ESG financing to make sustainability a matter of our habit, not an option.
Other panellists of the round table were Dr. K. N. Raghavan, Chairperson, International Rubber Study Group, Mrs. Fazilet Cinaralp, Secretary-General, ETRMA (European Tyre & Rubber Manufacturers’ Association), Mr. Nakorn Tangavirapat, Governor RAOT, Thailand. Mr. Salvatore Pinizzotto, Secretary-General, International Rubber Study Group, moderated the discussion.