President Boakai gets tough here in protecting Liberia’s rubber sector, calling for regulation of prices immediately.
By Lincoln G. Peters
Monrovia, Liberia, June 2, 2025 – The Liberian Government has mandated the Ministry of Agriculture to regulate price of rubber across the country with immediate effect, this June.
The decision was reached after President Joseph N. Boakai constituted the Liberia National Rubber Pricing Committee, headed by the Ministry of Agriculture to ensure fair prices in the rubber sector.
The Liberia National Rubber Pricing Committee is co-chaired by the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Ministry of Justice, the National Investment Commission, the Rubber Development Fund Incorporated and the Rubber Planters Association of Liberia.
Other committee members include the rubber processors, represented by Firestone Liberia, charged with the mandate to determine and post the monthly price of rubber within the Republic of Liberia.
According to a resolution from the meeting, the Government of Liberia’s decision was triggered by numerous complaints from rubber farmers in the country about unfair pricing in the rubber sector.
The latest move comes after a series of meetings among members of the Liberia National Rubber Pricing Committee during which a scenario for determining a fair monthly price of rubber was unanimously agreed upon, from several scenarios presented by a technical sub-committee.
The document quotes the head of the committee, the Ministry of Agriculture as saying “The committee has resolved that the monthly price of rubber will be derived from an average of the daily prices of one ton of rubber for the preceding month posted on the Singapore Commodity Exchange, applying a 58 percent dry rubber content to get the actual, from which the production cost is deducted, the resultant amount be used to calculate 10 percent profit margin for the processor”
It says the Liberia National Rubber Pricing Committee also resolved to meet during the last week of each month to determine and announce the rubber price for the succeeding month which takes effect the 1st day of that month beginning with June 2025.
“Besides announcing the price through the media, the Liberia National Rubber Pricing Committee will distribute the rubber buying price notices to processors and other buyers of rubber to be posted prominently at their places of rubber purchase”, the document added.
The document maintains that the formula for deriving the monthly price of rubber is subject to amendment as the Liberia National Rubber Pricing Committee may from time to time deem necessary, while urging rubber buyers in the Republic of Liberia to strictly adhere to the prices posted by the committee or face persecution.
Meanwhile, the Liberia National Rubber Pricing Committee says there would be a push for President Joseph Boakai to issue an Executive Order that will place a surcharge on the export of unprocessed rubber out of Liberia, to ensure processors are able to compete to get raw materials for their factories. Editing by Jonathan Browne
