In 2004, the production of rubber products (new rubber consumption) was 1.536 million tons, which is 3.4% of increase from the previous year, and reached a record high. It is mainly because the production of automotive tires that comprises more than 80% of the total production of rubber products marked a record high, reflecting the increase of domestic and overseas demands.
Based on the statistics of production, shipment, import, export and other, the current status of rubber industry in Japan will be presented. Besides, global warming as a worldwide significance, ISO, globalization such as overseas operations by business enterprises, and technological development will be dealt with briefly.

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Globally, South Korea is one of the leading nations in utilizing rubber products. Though the nation has captured over 5% of the natural rubber market globally, however, has secured about 85% of the synthetic rubber domestically. Amazingly, over 2, 000 rubber industries are in full fledge operations with production volume creeping around 5 billion dollars, which is, equivalent to 1% of the entire production of the domestic manufacturers. Moreover, the Korean rubber industry is frontiers in tires manufacturing, shoes, and other rubber products. Though the export of rubber products is reduced half as compared to 1990, the situation is stable since after 1997 financial crisis. Furthermore, from 1990 there exists a sharp decay of -3.6%, still nation remains 6th largest natural rubber consumer, and 7th in synthetic, worldwide. Presently, the pace of the shoes industry watershed has been halted by unfavorable business climate in the international market. It will be big leap ahead, if the Korean rubber industry in the shoe sector renovates successfully by solidifying their ground roots.

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“Rubber” is an indispensable material as an element for automobile, because of its original characteristics such as big transformation and restoration, which other materials do not have. There are no doubts that the technologies utilized in components such as tires, bushes, insulators and seals have supported the history of automotive evolution for more than 100 years. Due to the flexible property of “Rubber”, automobiles have gained practicable durability and reliability in components such as bodies, power trains and axles etc. At the same time, automobiles have gained good comfort for passengers. It is also well known that automobiles have highly increased in their vehicle dynamics level, such as driving, handling and braking, by the ever improving road contact ability of the pneumatic tires. Now days, the current issues in automobile development are focused around minimizing the negative aspects such as environmental impact, traffic congestion and traffic accidents and maximizing the positive aspects such as fun, delight, excitement and comfort. “Rubber” must play more important part in such efforts. Expectations for the “Rubber” are discussed from an automotive standpoint, including author's personal ideas.

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Hydrocarbon elastomers bearing polar functional groups at their chain ends or at both chain ends can greatly reduce the hysteresis of a tire compound and thus improve rolling resistance and fuel economy. These functional elastomers can be easily prepared via living anionic polymerization techniques. However, to prepare an elastomer with more than two functional groups in the same polymer chain, especially along the polymer backbone, a more elaborate and costly process is normally required. To facilitate the in-chain functionalization of tire elastomers, we have developed a series of new styrenic and Éφ-methyl styrenic monomers containing various amine functional groups starting from relatively inexpensive divinylbenzene or diisopropenylbenzene. These functional monomers allow one to prepare novel functionalized tire elastomers containing any number of amine functional groups at any location within the polymer chain via anionic co-polymerization with any conjugated diene or styrene monomer. More importantly, polymerization can be carried out over a wide temperature range, even at the elevated temperatures normally used for commercial production of tire elastomers. The preparation of these new functional monomers and their co-polymerization with diene monomers will be presented. The physical properties of these novel functionalized polymers will be compared to their conventionally prepared counterparts in carbon black and silica filled compounds.

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