World’s number one solid tyre manufacturer flies Sri Lanka flag high at Davos Forum

  The little known fact that Sri Lanka is the home for the world’s number one producer of solid tyres was under spotlight at a top level investor forum held in Davos, Switzerland on the sidelines of the  World Economic Forum last month. 

Camso Loadstar Ltd, Chairman Pierre Pringiers flew the Sri Lanka flag high in Davos with the inspiring story of how the island nation is powering the world’s biggest solid tyre operations as well as his own experience as an entrepreneur and investor in Sri Lanka for 35 years.  Given his love for Sri Lanka and the contribution, Pringiers is also the Honorary Consul for Belgium in Sri Lanka.

Before he detailed the success story of Camso Loadstar at the Davos Forum attended by European and Asian investors, Pringiers said: “I wish to bring my personal story as an inspiration for people and companies looking for the right place for manufacturing in the Asian region.”

“I have been participating in the process of the opening of Sri Lanka’s economy in 1980 with the setting up of the first solid tyre manufacturing plant in the country which was a joint venture between a subsidiary of the Michelin Group and Associated Motorways.

In 1984, I decided to set up a new joint venture company Loadstar in partnership with the Jinasena family initially only for solid industrial tyres but which extended its range of products to pneumatic tyres for construction in 1990 and for manufacturing of wheels in 1997 and rubbertracks in 2003.

The initiative was in fact more like a start up as my initial investment at that time to get  a 35% of the shares  had been only $ 60,000 and it had been a pure family type of business for 25 years.

Every year we have beaten our organic growth forecast except for two years in 2008 and 2009 due to the global financial crisis. 

In 2010 we formed a merger with the company Camoplast based in Montreal and became CAMSO, which today has grown to a level of world wide sales of $ 1 billion and with 66% of the products manufactured in Sri Lanka, and selling to 140 countries in the world and CAMSO Loadstar became the number one solid tyre manufacturer in the world. 

Today most of the world’s international solid tyre manufacturing groups have set up plants in Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka has a world market share of over 60% solid tyres.  This is what you can call a niche market success story.

Our company with its roots in Sri Lanka evolved from a family business to a multinational with next to the family shareholders a stable group of institutional investors and pension funds. 

This is the type of manufacturing success stories which have been written in Sri Lanka.

Why has Sri Lanka done better than other Asian Tigers like Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, Korea and China in this instance?

Yes originally may be the availability of rubber and low cost labour but I wish to highlight eight major points which are part of the success story of the past and four major recent points which will help to write the future success stories of Sri Lanka’s manufacturing prowess. 

1 Sri Lanka’s location is key between the Far East and the West geographically and culturally. Indeed Sri Lanka is a society which has an exceptional ease of communication in language and common vision of socio cultural values which makes foreign investors feel at home and make it easy for them to operate.

2 Sri Lanka by its size and natural hospitality is easy for the full range of size of investment which ranges from the start up till the full size of multi million US Dollar projects. Remember Loadstar was a startup.

3 The large pool of low cost and high skill workforce with high literacy rate, easy to train and learn and a pool of graduates which are capable to handle and be trained for high tech jobs. In my own company, the large scale technological development in manufacturing technology and product development brought Camso Loadstar and the solid tyre industry in Sri Lanka as a whole in the leadership position in the world with over 60% of the world market

4 The excellent and cost effective freight costs from Colombo due to the transhipment hub status of Colombo port and the high efficiency 

5 The presence of a few key international banks and a strong group of dynamic and development oriented local banks have been a stable support for our growth

6 The one stop facilitation of the Board of Investment for the whole process of obtaining fast approval for the implementation of new projects and expansion of existing ones and the easy access to the top government decision makers to resolve roadblocks when the case occurs and the incentive given for various types of industries and/or locations



7 Throughout the time, the fact that contracts signed with the BOI have always been honoured, independent from political changes is a reassuring proof of stability

8 The flawless track record also within the regulations in place to repatriate profits without complications.

Now to the four recently positive factors for future success stories

1 Peace, true democracy and rule of law and elimination of corruption. What Camso Loadstar has been able to do in times when the country was virtually at war can now for sure be achieved better and faster in a peaceful environment.

2 The recent reduction of the normal tax on company profits lowered to the level of 15% across the board puts Sri Lanka in the league of most attractive tax rates in the world even below Hong Kong which has far long been  a benchmark of attractive tax system in the world.

3 The strategic decision taken by the Government to streamline and review all rules and regulations and streamline incentives for facilitations of investments and to bring the efforts of the two key actors - the BOI and the Export Development Board  under one Ministry creates expectations for further improved efficiency to attract investors.

4 The 30 years of unrest and partial war have left the country as a virgin territory with relatively low number of manufacturing industries in various sectors from mechanical to electrical and electronics and this void creates a real first mover advantage opportunity for new niche market product manufacturing to come and set up new manufacturing companies.

The Sri Lanka Government has recently identified the manufacturing hub as one of the four key hubs for its future development. This is an absolutely timely decision. 

Based on my success story I have since the Tsunami of December 2004, dedicated a large part of my efforts and resources in the field of philanthropy under Building A Future Foundation (BAFF), Sri Lanka in the reconstruction of 750 houses first and later developing and training of young people for employment of development and creation of spinoffs under the social business concept or otherwise. 

We have been pioneering new fishing boats with hybrid combined sail/engine drives under the Sashimi Project. We have been the pioneers in developing the Whale Watching from Mirissa which is a pure social business owned and run by the sons of fishermen. Now there are 45 such companies. 

We are currently developing a locally rooted approach to the manufacturing and chartering of yachts and mini cruise boats under the umbrella of the Sail Sri Lanka Yachting Group where  we are looking for investors to help finance the $ 25 million needed for the first step of the development of this sector which is non-existent in Sri Lanka at present.