OTR Tyre Crunch: Indian Ministry’s Counters Chinese ‘Speculators’

(India/Rubber Asia) The off-the-road (OTR) tyre makers in India are refusing to take fresh orders “at least for the next few years” in the wake of an avalanche of orders hitting them. The acute shortage of tyres, especially meant for heavy-duty dumpers, raises a serious threat to one of India’s core sectors, the mining industry, especially coal.

Indian Coal Ministry sources fear that a good many existing operational dumpers in large and medium-size open-cast mines may be rendered non-functional due to the tyre shortage.

The ministry reportedly plans to approach the External Affairs Ministry to request the latter to take up the tyre supply issue with various producing/supplying countries at the diplomatic level. This has been made necessary as a substantial portion of the world OTR tyre production capacity has been reportedly booked by China for speculative trading purposes.