At the Cologne International Tire Show in Germany from June 9 to 11, 2026, 31 Qingdao tire companies made a wonderful appearance in a joint exhibition area of nearly 700 square meters.
The exhibition achieved fruitful results, with more than 1,500 buyers from Germany, Spain, the United States and other countries contacted, and an intended transaction of 153 million yuan was reached.
This excellent result not only demonstrates the global competitiveness of ‘Qingdao Premium’, but also reflects the remarkable results of the local government’s organized overseas strategy in the complex international trade environment.
As the top event in the global tire industry, this year’s Cologne Show focuses on circular economy, new materials and digital services. It has set up the first “Service Corridor” to promote retailers to switch to selling services, and uses innovation laboratories to showcase full life cycle technologies from raw materials to recycling.
Under this industry trend, Qingdao enterprises have collectively demonstrated their strong strength in the fields of car tires, engineering tires, and truck tires, forming a highly influential regional brand matrix.
The exhibition’s RFID ecosystem space demonstrates the full traceability technology of tires from manufacturing to retreading, meeting the industry’s demand for transparency and sustainability.
Moreover, Qingdao’s leading companies participated in the exhibition in specially designed formats to create a unified image of ‘Qingdao Premium Products’, changing the previous situation of companies going it alone.
At the exhibition, the innovative products of several leading Qingdao companies became the focus, directly attracting in-depth negotiations with key international buyers.
Sailun Group’s ‘liquid gold’ tire technology has successfully attracted the attention of German logistics giant DBSchenker with its fuel-saving and wear-resistant performance.
The new energy vehicle tires and racing tires mainly promoted by Sentury Tire accurately meet the needs of the high-end European market, attracting the large Spanish distributor Grupo Andrés and the wholesale importer European Tire Distributors (ETD).
Doublestar Tire’s ‘fully explosion-proof’ safety tire series has been highly praised by large wholesalers such as InterSprint and Bohnenkamp for its excellent safety performance, and took this opportunity to expand into the African market for the first time.
These cases show that Qingdao tire companies are building differentiated advantages in green and high-performance products through R&D investment.
Since this year, Qingdao Municipal Commerce Bureau has strengthened its exhibition organization and effectively helped companies grab orders and expand markets through a number of professional means.
Its support measures include strengthening exhibition organization and external liaison, promptly connecting with well-known domestic and foreign exhibition organizers and business associations, and guiding exhibitors to participate in the entire process efficiently.
In terms of upgrading the overall image, the “Qingdao Excellent Products” regional brand is planned in a unified manner to form a brand synergy and enhance international exposure; precise business matching is carried out in advance to connect with overseas business associations, and target buyers are matched according to the characteristics of the company’s products to greatly improve negotiation efficiency; a long-term service mechanism is established to implement the “Young Enterprises Go Overseas, Trade Qingdao” action, establish a hierarchical cultivation mechanism, launch the “one country, one policy, one industry, one policy” market guideline, and link up with customs, taxation and other departments to clear up key choke points such as logistics and customs clearance.
This model of ‘the government sets the stage and enterprises perform’ has effectively lowered the threshold and risks for enterprises to go overseas.
This exhibition coincides with an important window period for international trade policy.
At the end of May 2026, the European Commission issued a supplementary announcement before the final ruling on the anti-dumping case against Chinese tires, and the domestic corporate tax rate ushered in a significant reduction.
The tax rate for leading cooperative enterprises such as Sailun and Sen Qilin dropped from 29.9% to 24.4%; the tax rate for small and medium-sized tire companies such as Shandong Yongsheng dropped from 51.6% to 45.3%.
The tax rate reduction directly reduces export costs and allows Chinese tires to regain price competitiveness in the European market.
This provides temporary benefits for Qingdao companies to expand their European businesses, but the industry still needs to face the long-term challenge of rising trade protectionism.
The bumper harvest at Cologne Exhibition is the epitome of the internationalization process of Qingdao’s tire industry.
Taking Sailun Group as an example, its overseas revenue has accounted for more than 76% of its total revenue. By building production bases in Vietnam, Cambodia and other countries, it has achieved a leap from “exporting products overseas” to “exporting brands overseas” and even “exporting standards overseas.”
The company is increasing investment in research and development, focusing on smart and green tire technology, and winning market trust through innovation.
The government-enterprise collaboration model will continue to be optimized to help more small and medium-sized enterprises integrate into the global supply chain.
Qingdao tire companies are making steady progress on the global track with their technical strength and organizational support, and their experience provides a model for China’s manufacturing industry to go overseas.
