Shortages, price rises to follow tariffs on Chinese TBRs

“With the anti-dumping tariff situation that we have right now, a lot of the orders in the last quarter have stopped,” Helm said at the Future Tire Conference, held 30-31 May in Cologne.

“So, you would expect this year to have a little bit of a shortage in Q3 and Q4,” added the BRV leader, who is also managing director of the Reifen Helm Group. This, he expected, would impact “not only for budget but also for premium brands.”

Noting the particularly “strong impact” on the retreading market, Helm said that there had been an almost one-on-one relationship between increases in low-cost Chinese tire imports and decreases in the retreading market for EU suppliers.

“We are expecting [an impact] mainly on the retreading sector and we expect increases in prices,” said Helm. “If you take it all over Europe it was 4 to 4.5 million imports from China and [there is] about 1 million stocked at the wholesales.

“So, this year we are around 3 million units missing and I don't think we can compensate for that. We will get some shortage to the end of the year maybe the start of 2019.

“Then we will see changes as moulds are brought from China to other locations and a change in the production situation. Then, I would say, stabilisation.”