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company’s capacity is now 3,500 tonnes per month of which 1,500 tonnes is for precured treads and 2,000 tonnes for custom compounding. Key reasons for the investment included the desire to develop the company’s position in custom compounding as well as to allow it to expand its business in the retreading sector, especially
need to retread Asian casings but don’t want to use their franchise rubber on those casings. We don’t see ourselves replacing the franchises, but we are looking to fill the gaps as well as provide some solutions in special sizes. Because of anti-dumping, retreading has become sustainable in Europe again. We believe that
SingEx Innovates to Add New Impetus to Tyrexpo Asia
Tyrexpo Asia director Ian Wu
Eversafe Managing Director Cheah Siang Tee
in the key markets of Europe and Latin America.
Eversafe already does some business in the European retreading market but is now looking to expand both in precure and hot cure. With this in mind the company has established a distribution warehouse in the European market (Bulgaria) through an arrangement with a local logistics company, which means there is stock available in Europe, allowing customers to order smaller quantities. In addition to Europe Eversafe is also targeting expansion in South America and Canada.
Cheah explained Eversafe’s strategy for gaining traction in these new markets. We are looking to provide an alternative to the traditional franchise brands,” he said. “The franchises make up 60-70% of the market, but this sector on its own is not enough for retreaders to sustain their business. They need other work, for example as a supplier of rubber to retreaders, who want or
for the next few years the European market will now be stable, with the next market review coming in 2022. This gives us some opportunities in the meantime,” he added.
Precure OTR retreading is another area which the company is looking at closely. With radial OTR tyres becoming more popular, Cheah believes precured OTR retreading will become more acceptable in the future. Eversafe can produce OTR precure treads up to 25 inches.
“We now have a big capacity at our Ipoh plant,” he continued, “so we are now also looking to diversify into some technical rubber compounds. In this area we are open for collaboration and open to opportunities.
“The purpose of this event was to give customer confidence in the Eversafe product,” he concluded. “What we are trying to show is that our product is comparable to the European standard at Asian costs.”
Tyrexpo Asia has long been considered the leading international tyre industry exhibition in Asia, and with good reason, but in a world where exhibitions are becoming ever more regionalised and segmented, show organisers SingEx are having to become increasingly inventive and original in order to make sure their show remains sufficiently different from all the other events on offer to assure the exhibition maintains its leading position.
Of course, the situation is not helped when the show coincides with another tyre exhibition in Indonesia, an automotive equipment and parts show in
industry exhibitions in other South East Asian markets such as the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia and specialist events such as the Asian Retread Conference.
There is also the fact that many of the equipment suppliers from both the retread and garage sectors who have traditionally supported the show, have decided over the years to either invest in other exhibitions more specific to their niches, or to reduce their participation by no longer displaying equipment on their stands.
Of course, the slack has been taken up by the many Chinese tyre manufacturers, importers,
Newera’s stand at the show
32 Retreading Business
Malaysia and a garage equipment show in China, as it did this year. That said, the challenge is wider than that, with Tyrexpo Asia also having to compete with the various annual Chinese tyre shows as well as local tyre
wholesalers and brokers, often supported by Chinese government money, but this has only served to alter the balance of the show to the point that it appears heavily oversubscribed by Chinese traders, a problem