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Mayur N. Shah

Plans to double truck, bus radial imports from Italian company

Mumbai , Jan. 6

Ceat Tyres Ltd is likely to go in for a technical tie-up with Pirelli, Italy, for its proposed bus and truck tyre manufacturing facility.

Ceat has been selling Pirelli brands of tyres in the country for some time now. A senior company official told Business Line that the Italian company is among the international tyremakers Ceat is looking at for a technical tie-up for its upcoming project.

Greenfield project

The company recently announced that it would be setting up a greenfield project for manufacturing truck and bus radials. Currently it manufactures passenger car radials.

The RPG-group company is also looking at developing truck and bus radials technology in-house with technical support from international testing agencies. Various options are open as of now, and the company will take a decision soon on the technology and location of the greenfield plant, said the company official.

In a bid to enhance its relationship with Pirelli, Ceat plans to double the number of truck and bus radials imported from the company from 1,000 units to 2,000 per month.

It is also contemplating sourcing passenger car radials from the Italian tyremaker. Though Ceat has its own passenger car tyre manufacturing facility, sourcing for the passenger car segment may be only for a wider range offering in the domestic market, said the official.

Besides Pirelli, the company has been outsourcing two-wheeler bias tyres from a local company. It now intends to broaden its existing range of tyres in the segment and will soon introduce it in the local market soon.

Expansion

Recently Ceat has raised $10 million through external commercial borrowings to fund the company's expansion and modernisation programme. It will utilise part of the money to enhance radial capacity at its Nashik plant from 40,000 to 1,00,000 tyres per month in two phases. The enhancement will largely be in the passenger car and utility vehicle radials and also light commercial vehicle sizes. The rest will be utilised in capacity addition of its off the road and niche products capacities, as also in modernisation of mixing facilities at its Bhandup plant in Mumbai.

Recently, the company board has decided to sell around seven acres out of the 32 acres owned by it at Bhandup.

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