Tires & Rubber Moscow Awaits its Jubilee

The fact that the Russian tyre market is among the most interesting in the world could not have failed to raise expectations about the Tires & Rubber Moscow exhibition, which took place for the ninth time in March.

Although the organisers of the Russian tyre show reported a drop in the numbers of exhibitors and visitors, organisers Maxima are confident about the future and believe that the show is on track. The 10th anniversary exhibition will take place in Moscow’s Expocentr from 12-15 March 2007.

In addition to Tires & Rubber, this year Maxima ran two more exhibitions in parallel using the same hall. The “Painting and Coating” and “Plastic Industry” shows were said to be a “rounding off” of the tyre show itself. (In Russia the tyre industry is still regarded as an appendix to the chemical industry by many) As a matter of fact, some tyre manufacturers such as Nizhnekamskshina with Tatneft still belong to huge Russian chemical complexes. All three exhibitions were held in Pavillion 2, right across from Pavillion 3 of the Moscow Expocentr, where the automotive accessory exhibition “Autotec” also took place (organised independently of Maxima).

Many international visitors would have like to have seen Tires & Rubber together with Autotec because, this year’s format gave the impression that Tires & Rubber had been marginalized, having been neglected by the organisers.

Tires & Rubber’s organisers have to admit that, for whatever reason, visitor numbers took a blow this year. Last year about 10,000 visitors attended the Moscow show. This year the visitor total shrunk to just over 6000. The official figures state 5,320 national and 732 international visitors. Thus the share of international visitors was just 12.1 per cent. For comparison: among the 5,800 visitors that attended the CITEXPO in Shanghai, last December, about a third came from abroad.

Tires & Rubber obviously must have lost some of its attraction with 40.5 per cent less visitors than in 2005. However, talking to Tyres & Accessories, Maxima’s Alla Shevchenko pointed out the high quality of this year’s visitors has also been praised by many exhibitors, she says.

However, the decreasing attraction of the show can also be seen in the number of exhibitors. Last year 246 companies booked space in the Mosocw Expocentr. This year there were only 198 companies. This represents a decline of 20.2 per cent. 60 per cent of this year’s visitors came from abroad, Alla Shevchenko explains. A relatively high portion of first-timers (40%) shows that the Tires & Rubber – although in its ninth year now – is still not as established as it should be. It seems that the show is still searching for its core audience.

In addition to that, two out of three major Russian tyre manufacturers (Amtel and Sibur-Russian Tyres) opted out after exhibiting last year. Word out of Sibur’s HQ is that the Moscow show does not offer the best value for money. For example one square metre in Moscow is three times the price of a square metre in Essen. However, other important players such as LLC Goodyear Russia think that the Tires & Rubber show is an excellent meeting point for companies and customers.
Looking forward to next year’s show Maxima has already booked Pavillion 1, the largest space available at Moscow’s Expocentr, says Mrs Shevchenko. The organisers expect more visitors next year when the show takes place between 12 and 15 March. According to the organisers, the first preliminary requests from major potential exhibitors have created great expectations and the hope that the 10h Tires & Rubber will be a success.