Page 27 - RB-106-2023-3

COUNTRY
REPORT - UAE
“Our vision is to be a leading and quality oriented retreading factory in the UAE, and we strive towards achieving this in a short time span.”
CASING SCARCITY AN ISSUE
According to Shukoor, the average selling price of a retread in the UAE is 30% of that of brand-new Japanese tyres, 40% against Indian tyres and 50% against Chinese tyres. Casing scarcity is severe, he says as buyers from neighbouring countries have demand for the casings and offer high prices.
Most of the casings in the UAE are really very good, says Shukoor, as police monitoring is strict on the road, and users remove the tyre while tread depth is at 3mm by law. There are no load restrictions by law, and hence no weigh bridges, so overloading is very common. There is no Fine system for overloading at all, and this has had a negative impact on the condition of casings, although a few of the fleet owners do maintain their tyres well with the support of tyre management software. “With regards to our casing purchases, we keep a close contact with the local casing vendors, by offering cash on the spot,” he points out.
When Shukoor and his partners acquired Emirates Tire Retreading in 2019, he and his partners invested in a new set of quality equipment and high-quality raw materials, with a vision of delivering high-quality retreads to the company’s customers.
“Our latest add on activity is installing a solid tyre press, which will allow us to remould used forklift solid tyres,” he explains. “Our premises are located in a 650 square metre covered shed equipped with Matteuzzi machines from Italy with the support from B&J, Robbins and MAE, and staffed with well-trained tech- nicians. We follow the cold process system supported by GIIB, Malaysia.”
Emirates Tires are also the only professional tyre repair source in the UAE having certification from Rema Tip Top equipped with EM1 and EM2 OTR repair machines.
With regards to the Marketing and Sales activities of Emirates Tires, the company organises product awareness meeting with local fleet operators in conjunction with their key supplier, GIIB, who also provide periodic training for Emrates Tyres local sales team, which consists of a sales manager and two salesmen, who handle the entire UAE. “Some of the marketing strategies that we apply include giving our customers free trials for big fleet owners. We offer our customers value added services like monitoring tyre performance, CPK monitoring, and commercial compensation in the case of damaged retreaded tyres,” says Shukoor.
SUPPORT FROM GIIB MALAYSIA
“Also, our supplier GIIB Malaysia offers excellent marketing sup- port like road shows, product awareness programmes for fleet owners including technical and commercial knowledge, dinners, and gifts for customers,” he added.
All over the Middle East and Gulf region, the general difference between the condition of the various retread operations is not great, we pointed out. Each and every operation has its own unique style according to the mentality of the management, so we asked Abdul Shukoor to explain his vision, mission and objectives.
“Our vision is to be a leading and quality oriented retreading fac- tory in the UAE, and we strive towards achieving this in a short time span,” he says. “Our mission is putting all our expertise in the retreading industry to achieve our target-oriented vision. Our ob- jective, however, is to enter a remoulding area with a monopoly supply. This is one of the reasons we have entered into solid tyre remoulds.
P.27