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SRI LANKA
Dankotuwa near Colombo. “Increasing competition in the market and reduced margins with long credit practices has spoiled the business,” he complained.
Payment collection from the market is also one of the major issues in the business. Considerable amounts of money are stuck with fleet owners and disturb the whole cycle, making the retreaders conscious about maintaining low volumes in slow market conditions.
On the subject of popular MRF tread patterns in the Sri Lankan market, he said, “MSA is popular pattern for size 1000/20 truck tyre and MRF has launched new pattern RLB in the middle of 2016, which is doing well in the market.” The plant caters to the market of Kegalle district and an area within about 50 km radius. New Victory Retreads has no connection with New Victory Motors featured elsewhere in this issue.
Sumith Looking to Expand in Tread Rubber Retail Business
Sumith Rubber Industries (pvt) Ltd is planning to expand retail sales of its range of tread rubber. Currently, the company supplies tread rubber to 6-7 retreaders in 3-4 districts of
Mahinda Wijayasiri of New Victory Retreads
Western Province and now it plans to expand it to other regions of Sri Lanka. “The plan is to retail it through dealer networks in other regions of the country,” said Anand Pathiran, Finance Head, Sumith Rubber Industries.
The plant, based at Heraltyawala Industrial Park in Kurunegala, started operation about 25 years ago, with the hot cure system and expanded into the precure process about 15 years ago. The company retreads 3,000 tyres per month, 80 per cent of which is by the precure process.
“The share of hot cure production came down but we continue to retain the traditional process of retreading,” he said. The installed capacity is 4,500 tyres each and is currently operating at 70 per cent capacity. It has two autoclaves of 3 and 12 tyres respectively.
Sumith’s tread manufacturing capacity allows it to manufacture 60 tonnes of precure tread and supplies direct to retreaders. “Now the plan is to expand the clientele among retreaders and dealers,” he said.