TOKYO - Rubber futures advanced to a record after data showed manufacturing in the United States expanded at the fastest pace in seven months, raising concern that increased demand will worsen a supply shortage.

June-delivery rubber gained as much as 2.9 percent to 426.6 yen per kilogram ($5,192 a ton) on Tuesday on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange before settling at 426.3 yen.

China's natural-rubber inventories were at 66,515 tons, based on a survey of 10 warehouses in Shanghai, Shandong, Yunnan, Hainan and Tianjin, the Shanghai Futures Exchange said on Friday.

"Optimism about the US economic growth increased investor purchases of industrial commodities," Hisaaki Tasaka, an analyst at ACE Koeki Co, said on Tuesday.

Bloomberg News

(China Daily 01/05/2011 page16)