Indonesia
Titan Europe has announced that its Titan Wheels Australia Pty Ltd subsidiary has commenced operations in Balikpapan Kalimantan, Indonesia. The business operation will trade as PT Titan Wheels Indonesia and will initially run as a sales and distribution outlet for products manufactured and marketed by Titan Wheels Australia. Company personnel will also be trained in the non destructive testing and wheel repair business.
Thanks to sustained growth in Indonesia’s automotive sector, one of the country’s leading tyre producers expects to see full-year sales to swell by 22 per cent. Gajah Tunggal’s director, And Catharina Widjaja, told Jakarta-based news sources that demand would continue to be high in the second half of the year, following the near-50 per cent growth in car sales in H1. According to GT, the company’s sales will top 8 trillion rupiahs (about 484 million pounds sterling) for the year; a significant increase on 6.6 trillion rupiahs for 2007.
GT’s president director, Christopher Chan Slew Choong, has backed up these figures, stating that the end-year predictions were in line with the company’s goal of achieving annual sales of 1 billion US dollars (c. 554 million pounds sterling) by 2010. Net sales for H1 2008 were 21 per cent up year-on-year to 3.9 trillion rupiahs (c. 233 million pounds sterling), supporting a net profit of 208 billion rupiahs (12.5 million pounds sterling), up 258 per cent from 58 billion.
The path of development follows a natural course and is absolutely logical: First the Rösler group covered all facets of earthmover tyre retreading, then entered the original equipment market with the “Winstone” brand of new tyres – and now the company has taken the final step in regard to its range of products and services for mine and opencast pit end users. The company is already on target on its “way to being a Total EM Tyre Management System Provider,” says Klaus Mühlbäck, international business Vice President for ‘Rösler Tyre Innovators’; a company title that made its debut several months ago at the Essen tyre show.
Pneuback Industria E Commercio De Pneus Ltda. from Brazil and PT Ossiana Sakti Ekamaju from Indonesia have joined the Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau (TRIB). “TRIB now has nearly 500 members in 50 countries and we expect to see continued growth,” said Harvey Brodsky, TRIB managing director.
With a freshly renewed corporate identity in hand, the Dortmund-based Rösler Gruppe, was primarily promoting the company’s OTR retread technology in Essen. But with pioneering developments in its Zeus tyre-fill division, the company certainly has more than one string to its bow.
The Rösler Gruppe’s Schelkmann brand is a name that is associated with premium pre-cure OTR tyre retreading. At a global level, the SPR (Schelkmann-Precured-Retreading) system currently gives the company a technological lead in supplying retreads for large EM tyres (25 to 27 inches). This still relatively new technology has already won favour in the mining industry, since it is extremely reliable and guarantees an extremely high level of safety. Tyres retreaded using the SPR system are designed to hold their own against premium new tyres in terms of service life, TKPH value and payload. In addition, this method significantly reduces costs per operating hour of these tyres in comparison with new tyres and other retread methods.
RFID-maker Advanced ID Corporation has gained approval for the incorporation of a subsidiary in Hong Kong, Advanced ID Asia Pacific Company Limited. The decision took effect on 20 June 2008, meaning Advanced ID has already opened its offices in Hong Kong led by its newly appointed managing director Cherry Lim.
Lim, 42, has spent her entire career working with companies that have innovative technology applications. With positions as chief executive officer and other executive management roles, she has concentrated in the fields of information technology, wireless technologies and integrated circuits. A Hong Kong native fluent in three dialects of Chinese and English, Lim was educated in the United States and received a Bachelors of Science from the University of South Florida, which was followed by an Executive MBA received from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
For Bernaerts Tyres International, the Belgium based tyre distributor and wholesaler, Reifen Essen presented the first major opportunity for displaying the company’s latest brand. When T&A spoke to company sales manager Luc Claeys during the exhibition, it was evident this new range, Optima Tyres, is one Bernaerts is promoting with absolute confidence throughout its European markets, including the UK.
“The Optima range was launched late in 2007,” commented Mr. Claeys. “It is our own range, an exclusive private label. And when we say it is our own range, I should point out we aren’t simply purchasing overseas made tyres and selling them under the Optima name. The moulds used in production belong to us and were built to our own design and specifications with heavy investment.”
The Tires & Rubber show was unmistakably a genuine tyre trade show, despite its appearance as an event mainly attracting machinery and raw material suppliers. Among the 197 exhibitors at the show, which took place in Moscow from March 4-7, 2008, were only a handful of tyre manufacturers – but plenty of resellers, importers and wholesalers. And most of these companies are only interested in the distribution of tyre brands produced outside of Russia, i.e. in China, Korea or Europe.
Together with Russian importers such as Petromaster (Hankook, Sumo Firenza), Avantek (Alliance), Satim (Mitas) or Yarshintorg (Sumitomo), TransGaz Komplektatciya presented itself to visitors of the Moscow Tires & Rubber show and featured the “Primewell” brand. This brand is produced by Giti Tire in China and TransGaz is initially importing only truck tyres from this range. Later, however, Giti’s new importer in Russia will also import and distribute Primewell and Runway passenger car tyres. Runway is yet another brand from the GT group (Giti Tire from China and Gajah Tunggal from Indonesia). To what extent, if at all, TransGaz will play a major role with regards to importing the group’s core “GT Radial” tyre brand has yet to be decided, says Richard Lyons, sales director with Giti Tire Europe and thus responsible for the Russian tyre market, in an interview with Tyres & Accessories.
GITI Tire Europe’s decision to take a stand of its own at Reifen 2008 points to the company’s strategy of being known as a leading supplier in its own right. In previous shows the company has been represented by its German distributor – Reifen Gundlach but for the very first time GITI Europe will be staging its own impressive presence at the event. The GITI Europe stand will cover 220 square metres, around 70 per cent complete will be GITI-branded, with the remaining 30 per cent of space being taken by Reifen Gundlach.
European Marketing Manager, Peter Foulkes commented: “GITI intend to use their presence at the show to officially launch and take forward to the next progressive stage, the company’s growing sales presence in Europe (including the UK and Ireland).”
After an 18-month-long investigation, Egypt has announced it will drop a 40 per cent anti-dumping tax applied to Indonesian tyre products and said dumping allegations were cleared.
Yokohama Rubber has won the right to prevent a particular tyre bearing more than a passing resemblance to its DNA S.drive high performance tyre from being sold in Japan. On January 18 the Tokyo Customs Office accepted Yokohama’s application for an import injunction against the counterfeit tyres on the basis that these products infringed Yokohama Rubber’s design rights. As a result, all customs offices in Japan will henceforth prohibit the import of any such product.
It is almost 20 years since the Rösler Group bought the Schelkmann patents for the pre-cured retreading of OTR tyres. Today this German company has reached a position on the European and global retreading market where the Schelkmann procedure is itself used as a product, a product that appears to be in strong demand. During the past two years the Rösler Group has emphasised the commercialisation of Schelkmann licenses, obviously a good means of generating cash through licence fees, but also very attractive to the German group; together with the licence comes a production plant using Rösler technology and a subsequent demand for Rösler pre-cured OTR treads. As of March there are six Schelkmann production entities operating worldwide, one of which is Rösler’s model plant in Dortmund, the company’s location in Western Germany.
Supercool, the flagship retread range produced by Goodway Rubber is, says the Malaysian based company, the product of many years’ innovation and invention, guided by a single dominant principle – caring for the people who produce the product and those who use it.
As Malaysia’s largest retreader and manufacturer of rubber compounds, Goodway believes its strength stems from its people, and the company boasts having some of the industry’s finest minds as part of its team, who carry with them a wealth of hands-on experience and industry knowledge. The fruit of this fortuitous combination is, in Goodway’s own words, uncompromising safety and durability.
Indonesia’s Gaja Tunggal Tbk is reported to have plans for increasing its sales by 15 per cent during the course of 2008. This growth will take place on top of sales revenue increases of around 20 per cent during 2006, up from IDR 5.47 trillion (£304 million).
In 2007 Giti Tire acted as co-sponsor for the ‘Great Turtle Race’, an international sea conservation event designed to raise awareness of and funds for the endangered leatherneck turtle. This year the tyremaker’s support for green causes continues, and Giti Tire recently announced it is donating $1 million for conservation projects in Indonesia’s northern Sumatra region and the mountains of southwest China as part of an agreement with Conservation International.
The program will protect the habitat of threatened species such as the Sumatran orang-utan in Indonesia and pandas in southwest China through the replanting of forest areas. Giti reports that, during the first year, the investment will offset the corporation’s overall 2008 carbon emissions.
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