Goodyear Confidence For Latin America

Following a recent meeting with analysts in Sao Paulo, the management team of Goodyear SA has expressed a positive outlook for the coming year. The company is confident of significantly increasing its Ebit-margins and anticipates reaching double figure Ebit margins from 2001 onwards. It is generally considered that the company could establish an operating profit of US$100 million during this year, compared withUS$68 million in 1999.

Towards the end of last year in Argentina Goodyear closed one of its factories with a production capacity of 3.4 million tyres a year yet now claims to have improved its productivity through a high capacity utilisation programme which currently stands at 95% compared with 80% last year. It is also anticipated that Goodyear SA will need to export around 8 million tyres to the USA to compensate for very low fill rates across the country.