Pakistan-based publication The International News reported on 29 October that The General Tyre and Rubber Company of Pakistan Limited, or Gentipak, will establish a new manufacturing facility in the country’s north. Details of this plan were given by company chairman Lt Gen (Retired) Ali Kuli Khan Khattak at a gathering to commemorate Gentipak’s half-century in Pakistan.
Kenda has launched a new passenger car tyre designed with a strong focus on decreasing fuel consumption. Hosted by Varga Trading Co., Kenda director James Lo unveiled the newly developed eco tyres in a presentation that also showed the new tyre’s low noise pattern design, addressing another EU tyre label category. Other speakers included Dr Hongder Chang, Kenda’s general manager, who outlined the company’s goal of generating sales of US$2 billion, and dealers Mohammad Shahid, from Pakistan and Nassib Daher from Lebanon. The KR 30 is manufactured in Taiwan.
Singapore’s Mindtrac launched its new Ultra X range of Indian-manufactured cross-ply tyres for truck and light truck applications in a 20-strong line-up. The company said it secured business at the show with customers in Singapore, Pakistan and the Philippines.
Waking up to find your vehicle’s tyres punctured is often followed by a phone call to the police, but if you live in the city of Abbottabad, in Pakistan, a call to the cops will also put you directly in contact with the tyre-wrecking culprits. The Express Tribune newspaper reports that the Abbottabad police, a force fed up with criticism about its powerlessness to prevent cars from being stolen, has introduced a new means of foiling thieves – the police opine that if you can’t move a car you can’t steal it, and based on this logic police officers now spend their nights puncturing the tyres on parked cars in order to immobilise them.
An article in the Daily Telegraph by David Williams takes an in-depth look at car thefts in the UK. Despite a falling level of theft numbers (1991: 347,000, 2011: 95,681) the proportion of vehicles never returned to their owners is rising. Figures from RetainaGroup show that 41 per cent were returned last year, compared with 51 per cent in 2008 and 70 per cent in 2002. The insurer Swiftcover says that, last year, 65,000 UK-registered vehicles were stolen and never recovered, with a value of £300 million.
Comments made in Pakistan’s Express Tribune indicate the General Tyre and Rubber Company of Pakistan, also known as Gentipak, plans to enter the motorcycle tyre market in mid 2012. The Karachi-based tyre maker, which produces passenger car radials under the General and Euro brand names and cross-ply tyres for light trucks, trucks and agricultural vehicles, recently invested Rs500 million (£3.5 million) expanding its production facility and began manufacturing tyres for natural gas-powered rickshaws; its production of motorcycle tyres is expected to start before the end of Pakistan’s current fiscal year.
Years of under-invoicing and rampant cross-border smuggling are still putting pressure on domestic tyre suppliers in Pakistan. So what’s the solution? Raid tyre markets in big cities instead of trying to stop smuggling along the long Pakistan-Afghanistan border, says General Tyre Pakistan chief executive Mohammad Shahid Hussain.
Under the leadership of Mian Iftikhar Ahmed, the dedicated team Mian Tyre & Rubber Company Limited (MTRCL), which sells the Panther brand of tyres, has won the Pakistan export trophy for the last eight consecutive years. Now, the flagship business of Iftikhar Group of Companies, a leading tyre and tube manufacturing group in Pakistan is aiming to increase exports still further. According to the company, the Panther trade name has developed a reputation of “excellence in domestic and export marketplace.” The firm supplies tyres and tubes for tractors, threshers, fork lifts, jeeps, motorcycles, scooters, rickshaws, cycles and trolleys.
The CEO of Karachi based tyre manufacturer General Tyre and Rubber of Pakistan, Shahid Hussain, has told Pakistan’s Daily Times that under invoiced imports and smuggling accounts for 57 per cent of local sales for passenger car tyres, 85 per cent for light truck tyres and 97 per cent for truck and bus tyres. These two activities not only impact upon manufacturing capacities at the tyre maker, which incidentally is which is 9.78 per cent owned by Continental and operates a technical service agreement with Continental Tire the Americas; Hussain states it is costing Pakistan’s government around 7 billion rupees (£50.4 million) in lost duties and taxes.
Bridgestone and its subsidiary Bridgestone Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd have donated over £41,000 to the flood relief efforts in Pakistan. The company has sold tyres in the country for 50 years, though it has no sales office there.
The strike that had frozen production at Pakistan’s General Tyre and Rubber Company (Gentipak) for a month has come to an end. The industrial dispute at the country’s largest tyre manufacturer, of which Continental is a minority shareholder, began on March 16 after management refused to a accept charter of demands put forward by the workers’ labour union. These demands included wage increases and the appointment of workers to permanent positions.
Earlier this month, Apollo Tyres brought together its high performing business partners for an India conclave, reports Tire Review. Partners qualified for the event by achieving challenging sales targets in the commercial vehicle tyre category in 2009. The initiative, organized under Apollo’s International Marketing Program for exports out of India, was christened “Jai Ho” after one of the Oscar-winning lyrics from the movie Slumdog Millionaire, and literally meaning “may you be victorious.” The reward for this victory was an all-expense-paid, three-day incentive trip to India.
More than six million tyres are purchased in Pakistan each year, but even though local manufacturers are only capable of producing 2.5 million units annually, they are operating at under capacity. The reason for this, believes the head of one domestic producer, is the prevalence of smuggled and under-invoiced foreign brands.
The organiser of the Automechanika Malaysia exhibition has reported on the success of this year’s show. Messe Frankfurt states that the exhibition, held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre between March 25 and 28, attracted 133 exhibitors from 14 countries and regions, plus 4,521 visitors. The top five visitor countries and regions outside Malaysia were Singapore, China, Thailand, Korea and Egypt.
Receiving official recognition can substantially boost a show’s standing, and Messe Frankfurt comments that the Malaysian government “understands the needs of having an automotive parts and aftermarket trade fair to boost the industry”. Malaysia’s Deputy Minister of International Trade & Industry, YB Dato’ Jacob Dungau Sagan officially opened Automechanika Malaysia. He is quoted as saying: “I am happy to note that Messe Frankfurt Hong Kong proceeded with this event although the automobile industry is experiencing a bumpy ride.”
Pakistani news sources are reporting that Karachi industry, importers and manufacturers are feeling the malevolent effects of smuggled tyres coming across the border from Afghanistan. The contraband products are flooding the local marketplace, leading to a reduction in the share local businessmen can hope to attain.
According to reports, Pakistan has a demand for more than two million passenger car tyres annually, and as much of 70 per cent of this market is satisfied by tyres smuggled into the country through Afghan Transit Trade. An estimate by analysts puts a figure of one billion rupees (7.2 million pounds sterling) on the loss to the national exchequer as a result of this activity, in addition to the obvious harm caused to the local economy.
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