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The domestic tyre industry has asked the Centre to take urgent safeguard measures, considering the surging imports of truck and bus radial tyres (TBR) in the country.
Quoting the latest statistics, the Automotive Tyre Manufacturers’ Association (ATMA) said TBR imports have gone up by 30 per cent in the first half of FY-17 against the year-ago period.
Alleging that dumping of radial tyres from China has reached unprecedented levels, ATMA said the import of TBRs has crossed 1.4 lakh units per month in FY-17 from 40,000 units in FY-14, an increase of about 400 per cent in three years.
“There is no reprieve from indiscriminate imports and dumping of radial tyres, especially TBR’s from China. Such large-scale imports are gravely hurting the domestic manufacture of TBR,” K. M. Mammen, Chairman, ATMA, said.
Most of the new investments of ₹35,000 crore by the tyre industry in India has been directed towards setting up TBR capacities as TBR is seen as the growth driver for the industry. Unfortunately, dumping in TBRs has touched new highs even as domestic capacities go onstream. With capacity expansion, capacity utilisation levels in TBR manufacture have come down to 60-65 per cent from 80-85 per cent a couple of years ago.
Currently more than 40 per cent of the replacement demand in TBR is being met by imports, while domestic capacities are faced with the prospects of ever declining utilisation, ATMA said in a communication to the Ministry of Commerce & Industry.
ATMA alleged that most TBR imports from China are being dumped in India as TBR export prices from China are significantly lower than the price of such tyres in the Chinese domestic market. While import duty on natural rubber is 25 per cent in India, import of tyres from China attracts just 7 per cent duty, it said.
The large-scale dumping of TBR tyres is also adversely affecting the interests of rubber growers. Truck and bus tyres are primary consumers of domestic natural rubber. However, as the domestic demand for tyres is being increasingly met by Chinese imports, the offtake of natural rubber by the tyre industry has been seriously affected, ATMA said.
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