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COUNTRY REPORT - EGYPT “My main objective is to succeed in delivering a full tyre ser- vice with high quality standards to satisfy my customers. In due course geographical pervasion is my second objective. I am positive that within the coming five years, our services will be appreciated by a major sector of the Egyptian truck end users, and we will achieve our targeted return on invest- ment”. RUBBER AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT FROM INDAG Challenger operates a combination of Chinese and Indian equipment at their retread plant. They have two inspection machines, one buffer, two skiving stations, one cement boo- th, two filling stations, one rim fitter station, one envelope spreader and two pressure chambers, with a total 24 tyre positions. The company’s production line is operated by se- ven technicians, and the total number of employees is twelve. Curing is carried out using the Rim, Envelope and Inner tube process. Challenger get their material from Indag in India, whilst patches and accessories are also sourced from India. The factory is located on a three hundred meters area, but the production line is divided between two floors. The com- pany is visited by an Indag representative once a year for tra- ining and auditing. We asked Sales Manager Shawky about whether the com- pany provides its customers with new tyres as well as re- treads in order to present customers with a full package of new tyres, repairs and retreads. Ahmed Elkaweel: “I know that tyre retreading will be an important solution for the difficulties and challenges of the new tyre sector. Tyre retreading will solve the problems of availability and high price of the new tyres.” “We do this on request of the end user,” said Shawky. “It is common in this part of the world that the end user prefers to have one account with one supplier for all these services.” We then took the opportunity of talking to Ibrahim Shaaban and Farid Shawky about some of the various issues affecting the Indian retread market. “There is only a slight improve- ment, as a minor percentage of the transporters stick to the load legislations, others don’t due to limited transport frei- ghts,” explained Shawky. “However, transporters who follow P.21