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GLOBAL RETREADING CONF.
Bringing the Retreading World Together
truck tyres and retreaded truck tyres specifically,” Stevens informed. The Chinese tyres in US are driving down the average price per casings on the local market, which was seen reductions from $79 in 2013 to about $57 in 2017 for the most popular sizes.
“About 1.5 years ago the US steelworkers filed a petition to the US Trade Commission to have tariffs put in place on Chinese truck and bus tyres. There are four different votes that the US Trade Commission takes when making a decision. In three of those votes they voted in favour of putting the tariffs in place. Unfortunately, in the last forth vote one of the
would take for tariffs because I think that even individuals or organisations within the administration don’t seem to know what each of them wants to do, so there are conflicting messages coming from them,” Stevens said. “All in all, despite this back and forth with tyres we believe that cautious optimism is creeping back to the retreading market,” Stevens concluded.
It would be fair to say that the Chinese tyres have already changed the US retreading industry, as in order to stay afloat the retreading companies have to adjust to the new market conditions.
“For years, probably decades,
Tim Stevens, MD TRIB
The first Global Retreading Conference that took place in Cologne on 29th May was truly global, as it gathered speakers and delegates from all over the world. The main topics of discussions were the market situation, surviving strategies, and, first of all, legislation, as many countries either had already adopted or were just considering measures aimed to protect their new tyre manufacturers and retreaders against the cheap imports.
It is believed that if those measures are adopted as they are planned, the industry could enter a new era, where retreaders would not have to fight for survival any longer. This is something that is encouraging optimism amongst the retreaders and their business partners.
Cautious optimism is creeping back to the US retreading market
The US tyre market has been impacted by the changing global trends, and just as everywhere else in the world, those changes were not really good for the retreading industry. The pushback is already on the way, as it is only because of some bureaucratic obstacles that the new protective duties against the cheap Chinese tyres have not been introduced yet, David Stevens, the managing director of the US Tyre Retread and Repair Information Bureau highlighted. The US retreading market is divided between the three main technology suppliers. Bridgestone Bandag holds some 44 per cent of the market, followed by Goodyear and Michelin Oliver with 23.5 and 22 per cent, respectively. Around 5 per cent belongs to Marangoni, 2 per cent to Continental and 3.5 per cent to others. These estimates were made in 2017, but as Stevens
informed, they do not tend to change.
“If we went back 10 years, I don’t think there would be a major shift in those numbers,” Stevens said, adding that some particular companies were putting some effort into strengthening their positions in the US today.
“Continental has been making a lot of more investment in the US, especially in the last two to three years, moving competitive plants into the country, and investing money into a new greenfield plant as well. So, this is one of the main changes over the last couple of years,” Stevens said.
The retreading market in US had been reducing in size during the last five years, shrinking from 14.9 million tyres in 2013 to 14.3 million in 2017. This is “a familiar story”, as the retreading market has been experiencing difficulties almost everywhere in the world, but in US the dynamics are not as bad as, for example, in Latin America, where the number of retreads reduced by nearly 21 per cent over the same period. “However, the problem is that the gap between the numbers of the new and retreaded tyres hitting the market is getting larger and larger. So historically in US we have a 50/50 split, but the gap is getting wider over the last couple of years,” Stevens said.
Import of tyres from China to US jumped from 6.3 million units in 2013 to 9.4 million units in 2015, but then started gradually falling, eventually reducing to only 6.2 million units in 2017.
“Some of the discussions about tariffs and potential tariffs started having impact on imports from China. There remains a high level of uncertainty about what happens with tariffs in the US related to
commissioners recused himself from the vote and so that in the most critical vote, the tariffs were not put in place. That was a big surprise to everybody,” Stevens said.
In response, US steelworkers have filed an appeal to the US Court of International Trade challenging that determination by the Trade Commission. The retreaders in US believe that the positive decision on the tariffs would be confirmed in the summer of 2018.
There are other potential tariffs now under consideration in the US that could have some impact on the retreading industry. In May 2018, the Trump administration published a list of goods of Chinese-origin that could be subjected to the 25 per cent import duty. Among others, this list includes “camel-back” strips of unvulcanised rubber, for retreading rubber tyres, and some machinery for the moulding of retreaded tyres. “A couple of days ago, the Trump administration said that they decided to put everything on halt. So, it is hard to know what direction or what strategy they
selling retreading tyres in the US was a pretty easy proposition, but now with the cost of the new Chinese tyres so low you cannot necessarily make that claim. So now we have to step up and be better at education, marketing and sales, being full service providers to the fleets and our customers, and that is what some of the companies in the US are started to do,” Stevens stressed.
Supportive measures are on the way in the EU
It is hard to say for sure how many retreaders are left in business in the EU, but in general it is believed that their ranks are thinning out. There were around 140 retreaders in Germany in 1990s, and now there are only around 60 left, not on the least instance because of the Chinese tyres, Tim van der Rijken, the General Secretary at BIPAVER and VACO informed.
Commercial tyre imports to Europe nearly tripled over the past decade, increasing from 1.5 million in 2007 to 4.4 million units in 2016. In the same period the retreading market
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