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ASIAN RETREADING CONFERENCE
Asian Retread Conference Launches Successfully in Kuala Lumpur
The first Asian Retread Conference was held from October 4-5 at the Sime Darby Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the first response from the delegates who attended the conference, was that it was an unequivocal hit. Dates have already been set for October 2018 for
Particularly impressive was the exceptional job carried out by the organisers in mobilising the industry – especially the Malaysian and Indian industries – to attend the conference. There were over 250 delegates registered at the event and every session was well attended.
(Goodway), Malaysian Rubber Board, SRI Elastomers, Liew Koon, and Eversafe, as well as Italmatic Asia from Singapore, the MRPMA and the Malaysian Retreaders Association TRMAM. Other exhibitors from around the world included Cima, Marigo, Salvadori, Eastern Treads and Leshan Tyrupro.
There was no doubt as to the main topic of discussion for the speakers, namely how the industry should deal with the current challenges of the market – especially the competition from cheap budget new tyres, particularly from China. Indeed, it can be argued that the conference was conceived at precisely the right time –
retreaders can effectively achieve cost reduction in retreading plants.
Aside from in-depth discussions on how the industry should face the challenges it currently faces, there were also a number of additional presentations of genuine interest. Highlights included Dr Zairossani Mohd Nor from the Malaysian Rubber Board talking about applications of Ekoprena in green tyre manufacturing, Gopinath Sekhar from SRI talking about improved sustainability with devulcanised rubber and the development of SRI’s own devulcanisation process, and Tim Hercock from UK retreader Vacu-Lug discussing the benefits of mould cure
Over 250 delegates attended the Asian Retread Conference
The main exhibition in the area outside the conference hall was constantly busy
the second edition of the event. Launched under the strapline “GO GREEN: Retread, Rebuild and Recap” the Asian Retread Conference was exceptionally well organised with a full programme of prominent, high quality speakers from across the retread world.
The conference, conceived on the basis that there was no real global conference of any note or breadth anywhere in the world, was organised by Asian Business Media, the India
The challenge facing the organisers now is to spread the attendance more globally but more crucially to attract more retreaders. This will involve close liaison with trade associations around the world and perhaps also a review of the delegate pricing policy. There is, however, a plan to achieve this, as John Powath, CEO of Asian Business Media revealed to us, and this involves expanding the conference to add a fully-fledged exhibition alongside the conference.
when the entire industry needed to get together to discuss precisely this issue. My own presentation on this subject is printed in full in this issue of Retreading Business, but I was far from being the only person to discuss this topic, with Chris Bloor of Giti, Tai Qisheng from GIIB, Chin Hon Meng (Chairman of TRMAM), and Rajiv Budhraja from Indian Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) amongst others, all discussing the subject in details.
This was backed up by Sudarsan Varadaraj from Elgi Rubber, who offered valuable advice on how
retreading and the development of an integrated fleet offering.
And, if you missed it among the preliminary speeches, Edoardo Salaorni, Commercial Director of Marangoni Meccanica announced that the Italian company had developed a pyrolisis process that was ready for launch on an international basis.
I have to say, impressions from the inaugural Asian Retread Conference were entirely positive. The challenge now is to match and exceed the first year’s performance and turn the conference into an event of true global import.
John Powath opens the conference
The Malaysian Retreaders Association TRMAM was a main supporter of the ARC
based publishers of Tyre Asia and Rubber Asia, together with the assistance of US based trade association TRIB. The main corporate sponsor of the event was the Marangoni Group backed by a number of additional sponsors including GIIB, SRI, Eversafe, Eastern Tread, CIMA, Bremels, Elgi, Vipal, Maxrubber and Struktol.
To highlight this, the organisers added a number of exhibition booths this year in the corridor outside the conference hall. This helped as a focal point for attendees in between the sessions and served as a blueprint for what might be achieved in the future. The mini exhibition was supported and attended by most Malaysian suppliers to the sector, including GIIB
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