| Date: |
19-04-2016 |
| Subject: |
Calling tyre makers bluff? Dealers say import of bus, truck, car tyres down, not up |
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The All India Tyre Dealers Federation (AITDF) has said despite the hue and cry by domestic tyre makers about the surge in import of truck and bus radial tyres (TBR), their imports dropped by 29.25% in March 2016 as against the peak December 2015.
Similarly, on the heels of this import drop of TBR, the passenger car/SUVs tyre imports too plummeted by 52.83% in March 2016 over the latest previous peak of December 2015.
On quarter on quarter basis, the passenger car radial (PCR) imports in the quarter ended March 2016 dropped by 32.38% over the previous quarter.
The federation claimed that the import of PCR tyres from China has come down from 74 containers in January 2016 to 50 containers in March 2016. Each container carries about 1,500 units of tyres on an average (from 111,000 units in January 2016 to 75,000 units in March 2016).
AITDF, in its letter to the Centre, said that it had duly
tabulated the import data of PCR import from China for replacement market for the period of January 2015 to March 2016 and it was very much evident that there was no surge in import of truck and bus radial tyres into India as is being shouted by domestic tyre industry.
The trend has been up and down and there is no sign of any dumping and related injury to domestic industry as their financial performance for last 12-14 quarters has been extremely positive despite weakness in the road transport sector and the economy.
“The latest data on import of passenger car radial (PCR) further vindicates that there is no case for bringing any restriction (quantitative or tariff based) by anti-dumping authority or imposing safeguard duty by Director General – Safeguards for any category of tyre imported from China,” the Federation argued.
According to the federation, the DG-Investigation, CCI’s (Competition Commission of India) 1,200-page report, as made available by CCI on February 29, 2016, concluded that leading five tyre makers and ATMA (Automotive Tyre Manufacturers’ Association) have contravened section-3 (1) to be read with 3(3) of Competition Act 2002.
Now, it is unambiguously clear that on the one hand domestic tyre majors indulge in price manipulation and on the other hand seek tariff and non-tariff barriers on import of tyres to further strangulate the domestic tyre market, it said further.
Looking at the CCI probe (2016), the strangulation of domestic tyre market has further tightened by the domestic tyre industry as there is price parallelism and cartelisation in contravention of the provisions of Competition Act, 2002.
Hence, nothing has changed which demands any consideration of launching anti-dumping and /or safeguards investigations or any other quantitative restriction in such a prevailing scenario, the federation added.
Source : financialexpress.com
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