Natural rubber (NR) is Thailand's most valuable agricultural product with production volume of 2.96 million tones in 2004. The yield was put to use producing 1.7 million tones of ribbed smoked sheet, 1.07 million tones was moulded into blocks and 0.5 million tones were transformed into latex. NR is a very versatile and adaptable material which has been successfully used in rubber industry for over a hundred years as it has outstanding physical properties such as high resilience, high strength, high flexibility, and resistance to fatigue. Latex is a key rubber product in terms of value. In 2003, the export value of concentrated latex reached Bt30 billion - 0.4 per cent of the country's total gross domestic product. The growth in its production has expanded steadily in the last five years signifying that latex is an important material in a number of industries. Concentrated latex is used in the dipping process when manufacturing rubber gloves, condoms, balloons, and rubber medical and household gloves.