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IN MAURITIUS,
TYRE RETREADING HAS ROOM TO GROW
Local tyre retreaders in Mauritius are experiencing a decrease in demand due to the country’s vulnerability to imports of budget new tyres from far East Asia. Already a flourishing market for off-road, truck, and passenger car tyres, the country’s tyre industry is poised for growth with more potential for retreading.
African countries are faced with an all-time high demand for automobiles, which has, in turn, created a growing market and demand for all kinds of tyres. This has led to stiff competition between tyre manufacturers, retreaders, and Chinese tyre dis- tributors across the continent.
Lance Clark, Technical Training Consultant in Mauritius, says the availability of budget tyres, which are imported mainly from Asian countries, account for the biggest percentage of the Mauritian total tyre market, constituting a great challenge to the country’s retreading market.
“There are a lot of very cheap Asian imports coming to Mauri- tius, which is not too different from the rest of the world.” “The-
se are usually low-quality and low-priced tyres. It started to have a big effect on the Mauritius retreading sector about ten years ago, or even before that. And it has affected retreading in Mauritius quite a lot.”
Clark is a South African who has been in the tyre industry since 1979 and has worked in several countries, including Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, and Mau- ritius.
In Mauritius, retreading represents a niche industry; the East African country has a significant vehicle population with in- creasing car ownership of 536,089 units of cars as of Dec 2022, which makes it an interesting market in the region for tyres—
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