KOCHI: The dumping of cheap tyres from China is hurting the interests of rubber growers in Kerala as well as the domestic tyre industry. The Chinese imports are responsible for keeping the domestic tyre industry’s demand for rubber subdued, Onkar S. Kanwar, chairman of Apollo Tyres Ltd, told reporters in Kochi.
“It is high time the union government imposed an anti-dumping duty on the imports from China. Imports from China nowadays accounted for nearly 30 per cent of the domestic truck and bus radial tyres in the replacement market,” he said.
The domestic tyre industry is under tremendous pressure due to the cheap imports from China, Mr Kanwar said. Imports to India have gone up in the recent past as countries like the US and Brazil imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese tyres. “The US has imposed a 35 per cent duty on Chinese tyres,” he said.
The tyre industry has been demanding that the government must change the lopsided duty structure prevailing in the country.
“Importing natural rubber attracts over 20 per cent duty but importing tyres attracts less than 10 per cent. The lopsided nature of the duty structure is not justified,” he said.
The tyre industry hopes to see the demand to pick up by the third quarter of the current fiscal aided by good monsoon.
He also said the company plans to double the capacity of its Chennai plant making truck and bus radials in the next two years.
Currently, it is has a capacity of 6,000 tyres per day. Mr Kanwar also said that the company plans manufacture tyres for the agriculture sector in its unit at Perambra in Kerala.
It is on the planning stage and details will be worked out in the coming days, he added. The company had already transformed its unit in Kalamasserry for the manufacture of industrial tyres.
