Malaysia&;s rubber manufacturing sector is a prime example of an industry based on a locally produced agricultural resource. In Rubber Manufacturing in Malaysia, . Goldthorpe draws on industrial policy theory along with many years of practical experience to examine the growth of rubber manufacturing in Malaysia. Over the past century, a series of technological discoveries resulted in the worldwide rise of a rubber production industry that manufactures tyres for motor vehicles, engineering components, household gloves and medical products. Goldthorpe argues that the production of rubber goods has played a significant part in the transformation of the country from primary commodity producer to newly industrialized economy, a position he supports by tracing the historical development of rubber-based industrial production and the effects of government policies promoting industrialization.


Taken as a whole, the rubber industry is vertically integrated, with locally produced natural and synthetic rubbers used by the rubber manufacturing sector to produce latex products and general rubber goods for export markets.