the dragon is biting the indian radial truck and bus tyre manufacturers hard while demand of radial tyres for commercial vehicles is shooting up and domestic players are unable to match the supply chinese truckbus radials are fast gaining a foothold on the indian roadswhile indian manufacturers advocate the benefits of radials like better fuel efficiency they are also concerned about the pace of chinese imports pushed to the wall leading domestic manufacturers like jk and apollo tyres have demanded imposition of antidumping duty on chinese imports to restrict supply from abroad and protect their own turfgovernment had slapped antidumping duty on import of crossply tyres in 2006 but these manufacturers now want a similar step against import of radial tyres as well according to automotive tyre manufacturers association atma truckbus radial tyre import has gone up from 88000 units in 200304 to 12 lakh in 200708 with almost 85 of supplies coming from china almost 35 brands from china like jinyu double coin and west lake sell in indian marketthough radial penetration in the truckbus segment is very low at 45 its adoption is growing rapidly in the aftermarket segment more transporters are switching to radials for higher fuel efficiency with around 30 reduction in cost despite the chinese products do not have adequate service support here it is estimated that of the 4000 truckbus tyre dealers around 700 are dealing in imported chinese tyresat a time when indian manufacturers are making investments to catch up with the demand rising chinese import is hitting them in two ways eating up share in their conventional cross ply tyre market and also threatening their own radial plans according to raghupati singhania md jk tyres who is also chairman of atma cheap chinese products are being dumped here singhania said while demanding the antidumping duty he is only opposing the unfair pricing by the chinese manufacturers nobody is opposing imports but our studies have shown that chinese companies are selling in india at prices cheaper to what they sell in their domestic market this is clearly dumping of their products here singhania addedrajiv budhraja dg atma said most of the imports from china are in the nature of dumping these tyres are being sold at almost 30 cheaper than the indian tyres however sp singh of allindia tyre dealers federation aitdf differs with the antidumping theory and demands that chinese imports should actually be made even more cheaper by abolishing the import duty radialisation is good for the fleet operators and truckers and with no big supply from the domestic players and the government should take steps to incentivise imports he said