Rubber cultivation in Indonesia and the Congo from the 1910s to the 1950s

After the global wild rubber boom ended in the early 1910s, the rubber economies of the Congo and Indonesia diverged markedly. The Congo's output fell sharply, to the point of almost disappearing altogether during the price collapse of the early 1930s when it stood at only around 100 tonnes a year (Vandewalle 1966: 11). In stark contrast, Indonesia, fast catching up with Malaya, produced some 250,000 tonnes a year in the early 1930s, accounting for about a quarter of the world's total output (Bauer 1948: 377). An international price cartel, formed in 1934, reversed the trend to a modest degree, as Indonesia was subject to restrictions that were not applied to Africa (McFadyean 1944).