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BULGARIA
Bigs stays afloat thanks to diversification
developments will take place on the market,” Slavchev said.
The downward trend in retreading industry was affecting everyone, including raw materials suppliers, and amid lack of demand, Kraiburg shutdown its warehouse in Bulgaria in 2016, Slavchev recalled. This step added a lot of problems to retreaders, since Kraiburg was the only raw materials supplier with a warehouse in the close proximity to the market.
Just like SP-Trading and many other retreaders Bigs has entered into an alliance, headed by Omnifak, the main goal of which was to jointly purchase raw materials.
“It is working very simply. Omnifak places an order for 10 tonnes of raw materials, and it is delivered on a single truck that is passing through Bulgaria. When it comes to us, we just take our 3 tonnes and that’s it,” Slavchev explained.
The source of all problems for the retreading industry in Bulgaria is the invasion of Chinese tyres, so the retreading business may recover only if this invasion ends, according to Slavchev.
There are real hopes that this will happen sooner or later, as some rumors about the tightening ecological requirements in China reached the market participants in Bulgaria and there are
expectations of anti-dumping tariffs throughout Europe.
As a matter of experiment, Bigs has been also trying to retread some Chinese casings. According to Slavchev some Chinese tyres are really retreadable, and upon request of the customer, the company can work with them, although most tyres of China-origin are a different story.
Speaking about the prospects, Slavchev claimed, that there was nothing retreaders can do. The only option is to wait and hope that the recovery of the retreading market will happen someday.
Unity Brings Strength for Bulgarian Retreaders
Georgy Slavchev, the manager of Bigs
Things have been rather tough for the Bulgarian retreading industry over the past several years. The strong inflow of cheap Chinese tyres had almost completely ruined the demand for its services in the same way it has done everywhere
else in the European Union, but due to several reasons Bulgarian retreaders found themselves in an especially disadvantaged position. Unlike in some Northern countries, the retreading industry in Bulgaria has no option to escape
RETREADING MATERIALS