SINGAPORE: Japanese rubber futures slipped on Thursday after a three-session rally, as global slowdown concerns outweighed optimism over the easing of some Covid curbs in top buyer China.

The Osaka Exchange rubber contract for May delivery was down 0.7 yen, or 0.3%, at 223.8 yen ($1.64) per kg, as of 0200 GMT. The rubber contract on the Shanghai futures exchange for January delivery was down 90 yuan, or 0.7%, at 12,930 yuan ($1,853) per tonne.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei share average opened down 0.23%. Japan’s economy, the world’s third-largest, shrank less than initially estimated in the third quarter, bolstering a view that it is slowly recovering from Covid-19 doldrums even as major export markets show further signs of weakening.

Hopes have grown in recent weeks that rubber demand in top buyer China would improve as more cities relax Covid-19 restrictions that have limited industrial activity and consumption.

China on Wednesday announced the most sweeping changes to its resolute anti-covid regime since the pandemic began three years ago, loosening rules that curbed the spread of the virus but sparked protests and hobbled the world’s second-largest economy.