10,000 tonnes of EUDR-compliant rubber: VRG's sourcing network that "turns regulation into opportunity"

The Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG) sold about 10,000 tonnes of natural rubber compliant with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) from 2025 through the first half of 2026 — this result, reported by a local agriculture and environment paper on July 3, is not merely one company's export news. Ahead of the regulation's full application (December 30, 2026 for medium and large enterprises), it is a case in which the state-owned largest player, holding about 377,000 hectares of plantations, proved with figures that "a compliant supply chain can actually be built, and moreover can be sold at a premium price." For Japanese import trading firms pressed to respond to the same regulation for coffee, cacao, and palm oil, we read it as a leading signal for rethinking how to choose sourcing sources.

Inside the "10,000 tonnes" — VRG's current standing on EUDR compliance, in figures

According to Diep Xuan Truong, deputy head of VRG's industry division, the company sold about 10,000 tonnes of EUDR-compliant rubber cumulatively over 2025 and the first half of 2026. Compliant goods carry a price gap of US$120 to 250 per tonne over ordinary goods (about 19,000 to 39,000 yen, at roughly 155 yen to the dollar), and the additional revenue is estimated at about 30 billion dong (about 180 million yen, at roughly 60 yen per 10,000 dong). That regulatory compliance has become a revenue source rather than a cost is the heart of this announcement.

The build-out of the internal framework is also progressing on an area basis. We organize the main figures that have been disclosed.

The EU is Vietnam's third-largest rubber market after China and the United States. Looking only at the scale of its 9.2% share, it might appear that "it is not fatal even without responding," but VRG took the opposite approach, using this market as a testing ground for early response and raising the management level of the whole group.

A three-year reverse-engineering — from the Cote d'Ivoire inspection tour to "VRG GREEN"

What makes VRG's moves instructive is how it worked backward in its sequencing. In 2023, following the enactment of the EUDR, it began surveying the regulatory requirements and consulting with its trading partners on the EU side. In 2024 it sent an inspection delegation to Cote d'Ivoire, the world's largest cacao producer, and after learning the practice from a region at the forefront of response, it prepared employee training and implementation guidelines. In July of that year it launched a group-wide response program, and in December three companies — Dong Nai Rubber Corporation, Dau Tieng Rubber, and Chu Se Kampong Thom (Cambodia) — achieved the first compliance. In October 2025 it announced its own compliance certification mark, "VRG GREEN."

The practice of Dong Nai Rubber Corporation, one of the three front-runners, is more concrete still. According to president Do Minh Tuan, the company sold 2,000 tonnes of EUDR-compliant goods to Europe over 2024 and 2025, and even in 2024 alone exported over 1,000 tonnes. Combining digitization of plots, QR codes, and blockchain-based traceability, it has put in place a framework that can prove it has "not been involved in deforestation since December 31, 2020." In Vietnam, a nationwide traceability system that tracks durian by QR has gotten underway and the like, with digitization of origin certification advancing across items, and rubber's response is positioned at the leading edge of it.

How it is received locally — "the demands are strict, but it is a market that reliably sells"

From the remarks of local stakeholders, one can read a view that takes the EUDR not as a burden but as a rebuilding of the barrier to entry.

• VRG industry-division deputy head Truong cited the sales record of compliant goods and the price gap, and positioned the progress of 29 companies and 81% that have completed document preparation as "the foundation for roll-out across the whole group." The plan going forward is to extend the response as far as the natural-rubber subsidiaries in the south-central coast and the northern midland and mountainous regions.
• Vo Hoang Anh, secretary-general of the Vietnam Rubber Association, called the EU "a market with strict demands for traceability and sustainability," while assessing that "demand is stable and there is room to grow." He indicated the view that the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) is a tailwind for market access.
• President Tuan of Dong Nai Rubber Corporation, drawing on his experience of actual sales to Europe, explains that digitized plot management and tracking systems are precisely what become the condition for continuing trade.

What is common is the thinking that "regulatory compliance equals investment to end up on the side that gets chosen." As suppliers that cannot comply are shaken out, the local side has already priced in the structure in which demand concentrates on compliant suppliers.

A leading signal for Japanese import trading firms — coffee, cacao, and palm oil are next

The EUDR covers seven items — cattle, cacao, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy, and timber — and their derived products such as tires and chocolate. The start of application was postponed under the amended regulation (published in the EU Official Journal on December 23, 2025), becoming December 30, 2026 for medium and large enterprises and June 30, 2027 for micro and small enterprises. The reason this is not someone else's affair for Japanese companies is that, as long as you sell products within the EU, a due-diligence statement with geolocation information is required no matter where you source the raw materials. Trading firms and manufacturers handling Vietnamese Robusta coffee, rubber, and cacao whose processed goods may head to the EU will be asked whether they have a sourcing network that can be traced all the way up to the individual farm.

The VRG case offers three practical implications. First, compliant suppliers have entered a stage where "you can find them if you look." On the Vietnamese side, the state-owned largest player has finished document preparation across 80% of its area and even put a certification mark in place. If you add "EUDR compliance status (document preparation, whether geolocation data can be provided, certification such as PEFC)" to your evaluation items for sourcing sources, it functions as-is as a yardstick for measuring the transparency of the supply network. Second, the sense of the premium's going rate has become visible. The price gap of US$120 to 250 per tonne becomes a reference value when considering how to book the cost of compliant-goods sourcing or pass it on to the sales price. Third, whoever secures supply first wins. The supply of compliant goods will be limited for the time being, and it will become a scramble with EU buyers. Whether you build relationships early with supply sources that have a track record, like Dong Nai's 2,000 tonnes, will change your sourcing stability from the end of 2026 onward.

The same move has begun in coffee and cacao too. In Vietnam, 23 orchards in Dak Lak province have launched a demonstration of low-emission cacao, and building production regions that meet environmental requirements is in the process of spreading across items. It is best to assume that the model demonstrated in rubber will next become a sourcing condition for coffee and cacao.

Ripple effects and practice — the question list for selecting suppliers changes

This move is also of a piece with the build-out of export infrastructure across Vietnamese agricultural products as a whole, including seafood and fruit. For tuna, the electronification of origin certification on the scale of 4,000 vessels in Gia Lai province is advancing, and the like — the shift to "production regions that can prove" is running as national policy. We organize the items Japanese buyers should confirm in negotiations.

Summary — the day "regulatory compliance done" appears in the spec sheet

VRG's 10,000 tonnes is a performance figure showing that EUDR compliance has come down from an ideal to a condition of trade and a price. The moves Japanese import trading firms can make now are clear. (1) Take stock of the items you handle (rubber, coffee, cacao, palm oil, timber, soy, cattle-derived goods) and whether you have an EU sales channel; (2) inquire with your major suppliers about whether they can provide geolocation data; (3) open a trading account within 2026 with a supply source that has a compliance track record, such as a VRG subsidiary. There is a year and a half left until the regulation's application begins. The companies that move before the single line "EUDR compliance done" appears in the spec sheet will end up on the side securing stable supply, not the side paying the premium.

Sources

• VRG exports 10,000 tons of EUDR-compliant rubber (Nong Nghiep Moi Truong, English edition)
• Delay until December 2026 and other developments in the implementation of the EUDR Regulation (European Commission, Access2Markets)
• Dong Nai Rubber Corp: Advancing Green, Transparent and Sustainable Value Chain（Vietnam Business Forum / VCCI）