The 2026 Natural Rubber Industry Development Conference was held in Kunming, Yunnan Province. The conference was organized by the China Natural Rubber Association and the Yunnan Agricultural Development (Agricultural Colony) Group. Over 400 domestic and international industry experts and scholars gathered together to discuss the development plans of the industry and explore new chapters of win-win cooperation.
Natural rubber is an important strategic material related to national economy and national defense industry.
The conference focused on core issues such as technological research and development, ecological development, and resource sharing. Relevant experts and scholars were invited to deliver keynote speeches on topics such as the construction of industrial technology systems, the empowerment of the real economy by futures, and global rubber market cooperation. The conference was divided into three parallel forums: "Science and Technology Leading Rubber Industry and Green Cultivation", "Technological Innovation and Intelligent Manufacturing", and "Market Analysis and Futures Empowerment". These forums conducted in-depth discussions throughout the entire chain from source planting to market competition, and reached a broad consensus on leading industrial upgrading with scientific and technological innovation, laying a solid foundation for development through green transformation, and expanding development space through open cooperation.
Yunnan Agricultural Development (Agricultural Colonization) Group is an important backbone force in the development of Yunnan's natural rubber industry. The group has promoted pilot projects of "insurance + futures" and "over-the-counter options", and has cumulatively disbursed over 50 million yuan in assistance funds, benefiting more than 90,000 rubber farmers. It has established a close-knit interest community connecting enterprises, villages, and rubber farmers, driving individual rubber farmers in Jiangcheng County, Mojiang County, Ximeng County, and Jinping County to plant over one million acres of rubber, providing employment for 6,000 people, and disbursing over 3 billion yuan in raw material payments to rubber farmers each year. It has participated in the establishment of the national rubber standard system in Laos, driving the planting of natural rubber by the people of Laos to over 700,000 acres, effectively replicating and promoting China's poverty reduction experience abroad, and the Fengshaoli substitution project was awarded as the best poverty reduction case globally.
"We will take this conference as an opportunity to promote the implementation and transformation of the conference's outcomes into development achievements. We will continue to exert efforts in key areas such as breeding technology research, green cultivation, intelligent manufacturing, and strategic reserves, accelerate the extension and layout to high-value-added fields such as high-end rubber and special rubber, transform the resource advantages of Yunnan's natural rubber into industrial advantages and competitive advantages, and at the same time, enable ethnic minorities in border areas to share the dividends of industrial development, safeguard and hold fast the national natural rubber strategic supply guarantee barrier, and strive to write a new chapter of high-quality development of China's natural rubber industry under the Chinese-style modernization model," said Li Sijun, a member of the Party Committee and deputy general manager of Yunnan Agricultural Development (Agricultural Colonization) Group.