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KAZAKHSTAN
AS Trans Wrestles with Almaty Plant
It was never going to be easy to locate a retreading plant in Kazakhstan and having located one it may be that the company would not welcome visitors. However, after much effort, a precure retreading plant was located in the Central part of Almaty, the former
Oleg Savchenko of AS Trans
capital of Kazakhstan when it was part of the erstwhile Soviet Union. Kazakhstan built a whole new Capital, Astana after it ceded from the Soviet Union. After a lot of convincing, the owner of this plant agreed to meet with a Retreading Business correspondent.
We took a taxi from the airport and drove for around 45 minutes directly to the big compound of a transport company. A lady was waiting for us at
the gate, she took us to the corner of the compound where there a retread plant. The owner Oleg Savchenko shook hands and took us inside the partially operating retread unit.
Oleg Savchenko, of Russian descent, served in the Kazakh army and took
over the plant about a year ago. He is struggling to run this plant facing one problem after another. It looks like the plant is testing his patience, as the plant hardly manages to retread around 60 tyres in a month. “We have
not left any stone unturned to run this plant but there are hardly any takers for retreaded tyres. Moreover, there are hardly any good tyre casings available in the market,” said Savchenko. The three year old plant runs on a 12 tyre Chinese autoclave. After taking over the plant Savchenko tried hard to educate the people about retreading. “We tried to popularise retreading by putting up retreaded tyres in crowded places and
advertising through the internet but nothing happened,” said a concerned Savchenko. A few people showed interest and even visited the plant but nothing big developed that would go a long way to bring in good business. They even gave representation to the various government agencies to use the retreaded tyres but there was hardly any interest shown by them. “The government agencies are cash- rich and prefer to buy only new tyres, they are simply not interested in retreaded tyres,” he stated. The low level of penetration of retreading led to the closure of number of retreading plants in Almaty. “There used to be four retreading plants in Almaty, they all closed down as they retreaded poorly due to a lack of expertise. Customers refused to accept their retreaded tyres,” Savchenko complained.
Savchenko’s retread company A S Trans has a few clients like the host transport company and others are garbage collection and stone crushing companies. The plant is importing tread from Chinese tread maker Yi Sheng, based at Shanghai. “We are in short supply of raw material, waiting for cushion gum to arrive from China in the next few days,” he informed. Interestingly, after struggling for a
while, it has been able to win few orders for retreaded tyres but unfortunately no good casings were available for retreading. “People reduce the tyre to a carcass, leaving nothing in the tyre at all. People are not willing to understand the concept of retreading,” he argued. The company is willing to buy good casings from the market but they are simply not available
The availability of cheap Chinese tyres is posing another challenge to the struggling industry. The Chinese tyres are available in the Almaty market for as low as US$ 300 – 400, whereas we charge around US$ 200, therefore, people say there is no point buying an old retreaded tyre against new Chinese tyre,” stated Savchenko. Spring and autumn are regarded as the good seasons for the retreading industry when more tyres come for retreading. “Even at the best of times, we retread just 120 tyres in a month,” he said. When asked about indication of any positive trend towards retreading in the near future, Savchenko replied negatively, “We are not expecting any turn around in near future and will continue to operate at the current level.”