Our History

MARDEC Berhad (formerly known as the Malaysian Rubber Development Corporation or MRDC) was established on 20th September 1969 as a fully-owned government company. MARDEC’s main purpose then was to upgrade the quality of smallholders’ rubber to meet international requirements, and to provide them with an assured and fair marketing outlet. Within a year, MARDEC was the proud owner of three factories located in Meru (Selangor), Rantau (Negeri Sembilan) and Grisek (Johor). These factories together produced no less than 10,000 MT of rubber annually.

From its modest beginnings, MARDEC remained true to its commitment to serve the processing needs of smallholders throughout Peninsular Malaysia, and by 1976 MARDEC owned a total of 16 factories nationwide. They produced an annual total of 120,000 MT, more than 10% of national annual production, whilst serving over 100,000 Malaysian smallholders.

This made MARDEC the largest producer and exporter of all premium and volume grade Standard Malaysian Rubbers (SMR) in the country. The growth of MARDEC was inevitably interrupted by market downturns in the early 1980s and early 1990s due to global recessions. As such, MARDEC had to undergo a period of consolidation and rationalization in order to realign its position in this rubbe industry.

In 1998, MARDEC’s forward-thinking approach sent its operations offshore to handle the processing and exporting of rubber & latex from neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as India and China.

Currently, MARDEC Berhad has the capacity to handle 300,000 MT of TSR (technically-specified rubber), latex and specialty rubbers at its processing factories. MARDEC also takes pride in being the first producer and trader of smallholders’ rubber in the world to be awarded the prestigious ISO 9001 certification.

Today, MARDEC’s core business remains in rubber processing, marketing and trading whilst operating with a more diversified production base, producing a myriad range of products with a greater competitive edge to better serve its customers all over the world.