Rubber prices which are at 20-year highs will stay firm in the long term as global demand outstrips supply and oil prices boost the cost of alternatives, the Malaysian industry said in a report today.

Demand from China's automotive sector is among the factors pushing up the price of natural rubber, along with sky-rocketing oil prices which are boosting the cost of synthetic rubber.

"The shrinking of total rubber area in the world, high oil prices, expansion of the world's car industry and growth in the medical area also lend support to the strong price," the Malaysian Rubber Board's deputy director general Mohamed Akbar Mohamed Said told The New Straits Times newspaper.

The daily cited a study by the London-based International Rubber Study Group which forecast rubber prices to stay firm to 2020 because synthetic rubber prices are expected to increase to well over RM9.20 per kilo.

Mohamed Akbar said natural rubber producers were working hard to ensure that the price of their produce did not fall below the RM5 - RM6 per kilo level.

Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia - the world's top three rubber producers respectively - account for some 80 percent of the world's natural rubber output.