China Archives - Page 160 of 240 - Tyrepress

Now one of the largest tyre-producing countries in the world, China has an indisputable influence on the direction of global tyre trade. The home of both fast-growing up-and-coming brands as well as a burgeoning domestic market, this tag chronicles China’s involvement with the tyre business.

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Toyo Proxes R888 Chosen for Wheeler Dealers TV Show

When the Wheeler Dealers TV programme upgraded a Porsche 944 into a track day cart the team chose Toyo Proxes R888’s the tyre manufacturer has reported. Mike Brewer, a well known motoring TV presenter, and Ed China, the star mechanic, buy and restore iconic cars and then try to sell them at a profit. In this instance they bought a 1987 Porsche 944 Turbo and planned to convert it into a race car, complete with a roll cage, new seats and a harness. They were looking for a specialist race tyre and a leading Porsche modification company recommended Toyo Tires. “Of course the tyre of choice was the ultra high performance Proxes R888; our road legal track tyre, known for its outstanding performance and phenomenal grip, both on and off the track,” company representatives told Tyres & Accessories (tyrepress.com), adding: “Mike brewer was amazed at the extreme stickiness of the tyres and the difference they made to the overall handling and performance of the car. By the end of the transformation, the Porsche looked and performed like a true race car and sold at a huge profit.”

21st July 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Sentaida Opens New China Tyre Plant

International News

Sentaida International has opened its new tyre plant, Cenchelyn Tire Co. in Qindao, China. The building of the “state of the art” plant was reported on Tyrepress.com when it was two-thirds of the way through its development in September last year.

The marketer said the new plant features “state-of-the-art machinery from Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands.” Sentaida said that in 2010 the plant’s production capacity will increase to 6 million tyres with a focus on the 17- to 30-inch UHP segment. Company sources suggested last year that the total production would touch 10 million units in 2013.

The manufacturer concluded that as a result of the new facility, it will offer the Delinte UHP brand exclusively throughout the US, and offer customers the opportunity to create their own personal private brands. (Tire Review/Akron)

21st July 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Kinforest Tyre: Putting On A Show

International News, Product News

Kinforest Tyre is one of China’s ever-growing legion of tyre manufacturers. Although the company Kinforest Tyre Co. Ltd was set up only at the end of 2007, the organisation’s history goes back to 2000, when it bought tyre-making technology from Firestone. In 2006/2007, there was co-operation with Continental until the establishment of Kinforest Tyre at the end of the year.

The Kinforest factory employs around 2,500 workers, producing passenger, UHP, light truck and winter tyres under the brand names Kinforest, Mayrun and Starlake. The tyres comply with a number of test requirements, including DOT, ECE, NOM, INMTRO, SABSAND and GCC. Kinforest also says that it was the first Chinese tyre manufacturer to achieve the ECE rolling sound certification.

16th July 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Infinity to Launch UHP tyre range at Tyrexpo Africa 2010

Tyrecor is planning to launch a new range of Infinity UHP tyres into the South African market at Tyrepxo Africa next year. Confirming the news, managing director Charl de Villiers said: “Infinity will be launching an exciting new range of products into the Southern African market at the show next March, which will include Ultra High Performance tyres up to and including 21 inches in V and W speed ratings. The Infinity brand already enjoys a large following in Europe and other parts of the world and we have received numerous requests from our dealer base to expand our current range. “We feel that Tyrexpo Africa is the ideal platform to launch this range due to the exposure it offers exhibitors,” he said.

By mid-July, floor space for TyrexpoAfrica’10 was more than 55 per cent occupied and on track to meet targets set by organiser ECI International. There is a current balance of 40 per cent national to 60 per cent international companies exhibiting, with strong representation from China, India, south east Asia, Europe and the US.

15th July 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Maxam OTR and High Speed Crane Tyres to be Displayed at CITExpo

Produced by Mai (Shandong) Radial Tyre, a subsidiary of the Italian Mai Group, Maxam tyres boast an “advanced” range of all steel radial OTR products which play an important role in accelerating the group’s market development strategy, both in the local market and for global export. Mai (Shandong) Radial Tyre Company is headquartered in Shandong Province, China and says that it possesses a “technically-advanced radial tyre manufacturing plant with a highly skilled workforce.”

Mai has manufacturing plants in Asia and Europe, enabling the fast development of heavy duty, application-specific products for divergent markets. All its products are available through the Maxam dealer network. The company will be exhibiting the Maxam range in booth 2828.

14th July 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Thai Retread Plant to Boost Bridgestone’s Asian Activities

Asian markets hold great potential for retreaders. To boost sales within this region and develop its solutions business in Japan, Asia and China, Bridgestone is investing some 5.2 billion yen (£34.7 million) in building a new precure retreading plant in Thailand. Construction at the 43,600 square metre site, located approximately 60 kilometres southeast of Bangkok, begins in July 2009 and the facility is scheduled to enter service in November 2010. The plant will employ around 100 staff when production commences and by the second half of 2013 capacity is anticipated to reach 30 tons per day.

13th July 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Ford China Announces Tyre Related Recall

According to Dow Jones, Ford is recalling 7,563 Chinese made Fiestas due to a tyre defect. The defect, which affects Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Co Fiestas produced between October 22 and May 14, was noted on the website of Chinese product safety regulator the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

13th July 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

DailyDepot to Promote New Designs; e-Commerce

Booth 2105 in Hall 2 will belong to DailyDepot Inc., a wheel production division under China Southern Motor Group. Products cover alloy wheel for passenger cars, steel wheel for passenger cars and steel wheel for commercial vehicles. The company has an annual production capacity of 5 million piece alloy wheels and 9 million piece steel wheels. It has in-house test labs and tooling work-shop, with teams to provide service from scratch, R&D to production to logistical services. Moreover, the company says it can support EDI and JIT system too.

Its experience includes the joint-development of new product and supply chain management, with customers including China Chery, China BYD, Audi, Ford, India Tata, and many other prestige after-market brands in United States and EU. DailyDepot will be welcoming interested observers to its booth, promising presentations on new designs in a fully-curtained area. It will also promote its new e-Commerce enabled website during the show, with registered customers in with a chance of winning a set of alloy wheels.

13th July 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

TIA Announces Candidates for 2009 Board Election

The Maryland, US based Tire Industry Association (TIA) has announced the slate of candidates for its 2009 Board of Directors election. TIA members will vote in open elections to place ten individuals onto the board for three-year terms. Members will receive ballots in the mail before the end of July, and can also download a ballot from the ‘members only’ section of the TIA website (www.tireindustry.org).

8th July 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

CITExpo “a Comprehensive Platform Serving the Tyre Industry”

CITExpo 2009 takes place at the Shanghai Everbright Convention and Exhibition Centre between 9 and 11 September. With much significance attached to numbers in the host nation, and nine considered the luckiest of all the single-digit numerals, September 9, 2009, or 09-09-09, is not only an easy date to remember, it is also a very fortuitous one. The organiser of the CITExpo exhibition in Shanghai, Reliable International Exhibition Services, certainly hopes this will prove to be the case, following a year in which the tyre business, like most global industries, has come under increased financial pressure. However, Wilko Fong – managing director of Reliable – told Tyres & Accessories that the worldwide slump has not overtly affected the running of the show.

“It is encouraging that our show has not been affected by the worldwide market shrinking demand,” he said. “At the same moment of last year, this year we have recorded 5 per cent increase in number of exhibitors and 10 per cent increase in sold space. There were 210 exhibitors registered before June 2008, and there are 225 exhibitors registered before June 2009. Also, some exhibitors are feeling that the market is gradually picking up from the bottom already.”

7th July 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Good Showing from International Companies at Autopromotec 2009

With a record 1,443 exhibiting companies from 47 countries and 150,000 square metres of exhibition space, Autopromotec is recognised as a leading international trade exhibition for specialised automotive products and services. This biennial event was held at the Bologna Exhibition Centre in late May. The increasing number of exhibiting companies from outside the host nation was particularly apparent this year, with a total of 468 foreign businesses from 46 countries presenting their products.

Also, despite the current global economic downturn, the continually evolving international influence of the event is manifest in the number of foreign visitors present. During the five days of Autopromotec there were a total of 101,620 visitors, 16,689 of whom were from overseas. As part of a joint agreement sealed betweenthe Italian Institute for Foreign Trade, the Italian Ministry for Economic Development and the Italian Automotive Service Equipment Manufacturers Association, the show hosted 90 trade delegations from 16 countries including: Argentina, Brazil, China, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, USA and Vietnam.

3rd July 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Global Natural Rubber Production Shows 2009 Decline

Production of natural rubber in the seven countries that account for 93 per cent of world supplies – Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Vietnam, China and Sri Lanka – is continuing to fall. Data covering the period to May 2009 indicated that natural rubber in Thailand (the country that supplies a third of the world’s requirements) dropped 22 per cent during the first four months of 2009 to 107,175 thousand tons. In the first five months of the year Malaysian output fell 28 per cent to 47,333 thousand tons due to a combination of factors including lower than anticipated rains which slowed tapping activity, poor export demand and an ongoing replanting programme. Replanting and the resultant reduction in tappable crop area were largely responsible for production in Vietnam declining 22 per cent year-on-year in the January to May period to 11,036 thousand tons, while natural rubber output in India fell nine per cent in the first five months of the year.

1st July 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Alcoa Appoints Kramer to New Growth Initiatives Position

Alcoa’s Wheel and Transportation Products business president Kevin B. Kramer has been appointed to a newly created position within the company. He will now serve as president, Growth Initiatives, and in this role is responsible for supporting Alcoa’s commercialisation strategies for organic growth, including the commercialisation of research and development initiatives and identifying and developing new applications that respond to market trends and customers’ needs. In addition, he will support the development and execution of global marketing programs for aluminium applications across existing and new market opportunities.

1st July 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

US Trade Panel Recommends Sizeable Tariffs Upon Chinese Tyres

Duties of up to 55 per cent may be imposed upon Chinese tyres imported into the US in an attempt to reduce their effect on local manufacturers. On June 29 the US International Trade Commission ruled 4 to 2 in favour of imposing tariffs upon passenger car and light commercial vehicle tyres imported from China for a three-year period. Proposed duties for the first year have been set at 55 per cent of the tyre’s value, while in the second and third years the rate would drop to 45 and 35 per cent respectively. These tariffs would be charged on top of the current rate of duty.

30th June 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

ITC Pushing Duty Increase, Not Quotas, in China Case

In a somewhat unexpected change in direction the US International Trade Commission will recommend a series of duty increases on Chinese-produced passenger and light truck/SUV tyres exported to the US. Monday’s decision, which is being forwarded to President Obama for his consideration, would place a three-tiered additional duty on the tyres based on their value – 55 per cent in the first year, 45 per cent in the second year, and 35 per cent in the third year. The fees would presumably make the retail cost of Chinese tyres more expensive in the US.

The duty plan was not sought by the United Steelworkers, which petitioned the government for a rollback in the number of consumer tyres imported from China. On June 18, the ITC ruled in favor of the USW by a 4-2 vote. That same 4-2 majority made the duty recommendation. In addition to the duty, the ITC recommends that the President direct the US Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Commerce to provide expedited consideration of Trade Adjustment Assistance for firms and/or workers that are affected by the imported tyres. (Tire Review/Akron)

30th June 2009/by Tyrepress Editors