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QATAR & BAHRAIN
Arabia market, Kumar said, “The Saudi market is also down due to cheap tyre imports but retreading costs are almost same as Bahrain,” said Kumar.
The Middle Eastern market is largely driven by stocks, which are currently at all-time low. “Oil prices are falling due to sanctions being removed on Iran by the West recently and there is excess oil being released in the international market. Petroleum
prices are likely to firm up around 2019,” said Kumar.
Due to the slowdown in the market, retreaders are being forced to operate on credit and cash business is now a very small part of the business. Moreover, companies are worried as the government is soon to remove subsidies on electricity. “The lifting of subsidies electricity will directly impact our business,” he said.
Nanda Kumar, Production Manager, Bahrain Tyres Factory
German equipment, which was replaced by an Elgi plant in 1991. The company changed its buffer and builder a couple of years ago, sourced from Treadsdirect. “We are phasing out the old equipment with new ones under the subsidised financing scheme offered by ‘Tamkeen’ extended by the Kingdom to private sector companies,” explained Kumar. Tamkeen is an organisation tasked with developing Bahrain’s private sector and positioning it as the key driver of economic development. Tamkeen, in collaboration with an array of banks in Bahrain, offers this scheme to facilitate access to Sharia compliant financing at a competitive profit rate.
Established in August 2006, Tamkeen is part of Bahrain’s national reform initiatives and Bahrain’s economic vision. It has two primary objectives - Firstly, fostering the creation and development of enterprises, and secondly, providing support to enhance the productivity and growth of enterprises and individuals to achieve these objectives.
The retreader is also coping with a market slowdown as retreading output is down to in between 300- 350 tyres per month. “We used to retread 500 tyres about one and half years ago,” he said. With low priced tyre imports rising, the prices of new tyres flatten to Bahraini Dinar 70 on an average compared to Dinar 120 – 140 about a year ago. ‘The price of new tyres has gone down, and customers argue with us on price but fail to understand that retreading involves costs like raw material and labour etc,’ he said. Even with the price cuts offered by new tyre manufacturers, there is still a considerable gap between the price of new imported tyres and retreads. The company retreads tyres at around Dinar 40.
Overall, the Bahrain market is in slowdown mode as mining has almost stopped, whilst trailer movement has also slowed down. Only a few trailers are moving and that affects the retreading business,” said Kumar.
The group owns another plant in Dammam in neighbouring Saudi
Arabia and operates under the title ‘Saudi Tyre Factory.’ The Dammam plant used to be an Oliver Rubber plant and was revived around 8 years ago. The plant has a 22-tyre chamber and retreads around 500 tyres each month. Commenting on the Saudi
Top Tyres Banks on Market
Recovery through Branded Tyre Sales
The retreading industry in Qatar has been shaken by the impact of the low price of Chinese tyre imports into the country. Retreaders are
fighting on multiple fronts to keep their businesses afloat and are faced with issues such as soaring rents, long credits, rising labour costs, as
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