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SRI LANKA
MRF Exports to Saudi Arabian Market
Kenya, Philippines and the UAE,” he explained. When asked if any new markets opened up recently, Mathew informed, "We have recently started supplying to the Saudi Arabian market." The remaining 35 per cent is consumed by the Sri Lanka market.
MRF Lanka has no immediate plans to raise the production capacity in order to gear itself to the future demand that may emanate from the Northern province. “We have no plans for capacity expansion as the current capacity is good enough to cater to the market. However, we are not ruling out the possibility of
capacity expansion in future, we may go for it depending upon the demand,” Mathew clarified.
Sri Lanka is regarded as fairly good market for retreading with equally bright prospects in future as well. The island country is an about 600 tonnes monthly market as claimed independently by the players present in the market. The major players are Arpidag of Richard Pieris Group, Associated Motorways (AMW), 3K, MRF and Treadsdirect.
MRF's location is a far cry from the stereotypical industrial estate
MRF Lanka is opening up in the domestic Sri Lankan retread market. The wholly-owned Sri Lankan subsidiary of famed Indian tyre manufacturer MRF, manufactures precure tread and made new clients in the domestic and the Middle Eastern market in 2011. The new clients are likely to improve volumes for the tread maker, which has its plant around 45 kms North of the island nation's capital Colombo, in Dankotuwa Industrial Estate. “We started working with 6-7 new clients from the beginning of this year,” informed K M Mathew, Project Manager, MRF Lanka (Private) Limited.
The Dankotuwa industrial estate is not a typical industrial town with a line of factories churning out black soot from its chimneys as found in most of the developing countries but a peaceful industrial compound where units are operating in an area covered with amazing greenery. The increase in
Sept period of 2011,” claimed Mathew. MRF Lanka is inching towards 100 tonnes target per month by next year.
It has been noted that Sri Lankan entrepreneurs are waiting for improving infrastructural conditions in the Northern part of Sri Lanka. The Northern part was closed and cut-off from the rest of the Island nation for almost three decades as the Sri Lankan government was fighting insurgency there and thousands of people lost their lives. “With the war over, the Northern part is open and lot of commercial activity has picked up in the region. The road infrastructure is improving, truck movements have picked-up in the North and North East. We believe it will positively affect the retreading market in time to come,” agreed Mathew.
Earlier, MRF catered for the international and Indian market from its Chennai plant but with the setting up of the Lankan plant,
Super Grip to Focus on Radial Retreads
It is interesting to find that mid- level retreaders are looking for the know-how for retreading radial tyres as the Sri Lankan bias ply market slowly gives way to radial. “The Sri Lankan
Dharmasiri. "Moreover, Sri Lanka’s retreading is low margin in favour of the big volume players and we believe that we should focus on our existing clientele to run the plant
Sanjeeva Perera, Managing Director, Super Grip Precured Tyre (Pvt) Ltd
market is adopting to radials, which gives double the mileage compared to bias-ply,” said Sanjeeva Perera, Managing Director, Super Grip Precured Tyre Co (Pvt) Ltd. "We have to upgrade ourselves to retread radials and we are looking to import the technology from India soon," he added.
The Colombo based retreader retreads around 900 tyres per month. We are running at full capacity but have no plans to increase the capacity right now as we are more focussed on upgrading our plant to retread radials," Sanjeeva stated. Super Grip buys tread rubber from Treadsdirect, Autoland and
profitably. The 900/20 size is one of the most popular truck tyre sizes in Sri Lanka controlling almost 25 per cent market share. "There are almost no margins in retreading this size but now the truckers are adopting the 1000/20 size fitted on the Ashok Leyland trucks. This size has the market and margins," Sanjeeva added.
The company has recently forayed into supplying retreading spares from India. "We have started importing spares from Coimbatore based ‘Glisten’. We were also been appointed sold distributors of Omni Patches last year."
K M Mathew, Project Manager, MRF Lanka (Private) Limited
clientele reflects in the tread manufacturing production of MRF. “The average monthly production in 2010 was around 70 tonnes per month, whereas it has slightly climbed to around 80 tonnes on an average recorded during Jan-
the company started shipping tread to its overseas markets from the Dankotuwa unit as well as to the domestic Sri Lankan market. “We are exporting the majority, 65 per cent of our production, to the markets of Uganda, Bangladesh,
34 Retreading Business