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CZECHIA
Bawel – Holding its Ground
Chinese tyres.
Livečka says, “We have seen some of our customers move to cheap Chinese tyres instead of retreads. We always hope that they see the lower mileage and the higher fuel consumption and that they will come back, many do return but we always lose some customers who are convinced by the low initial purchase price.
“Of course, when they buy the Chinese tyres it also damages the CoC business because we often cannot retread the Chinese casing.”
Livečka continues, “There is some hope that we can see growth by increasing market share. We have no debts here, we own our own premises and we are producers of Contitread. We are the only suppliers of retreads to Barum customers, no others can take that business, that gives us an advantage.
“As manufacturers we have to adopt our volume to the customer demand, and if there is a lower demand then we have to look at how we can reduce overheads. We always need to adopt to demand. Lower cost materials are not really the way.
We would rather maintain the quality- that is one reason why we recently bought the Matteuzzi RAS90 buffer to improve our production quality. We can improve quality by investing where others cannot afford to invest. So, this improvement will create an advantage over the competition, because our quality will be better.”
On the subject of Chinese tyres, Livečka shares the view of most other retreaders. “There is a need for a duty but the European Union seems reluctant to anything much to protect
industr y in Europe. So, we need to adapt. We need to persuade the customer that our cpkm is better, that they can save on the longer term by using Bawel retreads. However, sometimes we do have to sell Chinese tyres; if we don’t then they will just buy them from someone else.
“We can see sales of Chinese tyres rising. It can sometimes feel like the market is collapsing. There is no support for the industry, and it may go the same way as the shoe industry in Czechia (This is a referral to Bata Shoes – once the world’s largest shoe maker based in Zlin).”
Bawel Manager Vitězslav Livečka
Bawel is one of the larger players in the Czech market. It was established in 1993 through a co- operation between Barum, Wetest and Manager Vitězslav Livečka, hence the name Bawel. The major shareholder is Barum, then Westet and then Livečka.
accessories for both the passenger and truck markets.
The company uses mostly Kraiburg retreading materials, about 80 per cent, and 6 per cent ContiRe, with the balance mostly being from Vipal. The technology used throughout the plant is
The new Matteuzzi buffer bought at Essen
Carling Celebrates
20 Years in Retreading
Managing Director of the Carling retread operation, Vladimir Skoupil
Bawel employs 40 staff on a regular basis and has a turnover of 6m Euro. The main activities of Bawel are truck tyre retreading, new tyre sales, betteries and
largely Matteuzzi, and the company produces around 14,000 truck tyre retreads every year. However, the market is in decline due to the impact of
26 Retreading Business
Carling Truck Tyres is part of a larger Group and the company has interests in auto sales as well as retreading and tyre wholesaling. Based in Brno, Czechia’s second largest city, the Carling Group of companies has been in existence since 1992, and 2017 will be the company’s 25th anniversary. However, the retreading operation began in 1996, so this year is the 20th anniversary of Carling ‘s retread business.
When pre-cure became available in Czechia there was a move towards the more modern, less expensive production. Previously Western technology had not been permitted in Czechoslovakia, but after “the change” the markets opened up and companies such as Carling adopted precure technology very quickly.
Initially, Carling supplied tyre sellers and wholesalers but shortly started to develop its own tyre outlets and now it has 10 of its