Yokohama Holds Opening Ceremony at China TBR Plant

An opening ceremony was held on October 24 to commemorate the completion of Yokohama Rubber’s new truck and bus radial factory in China. Approximately 280 invited guests attended the ceremony at the Suzhou Yokohama Tire factory in Suzhou city, including provincial tyre distributors, city administrators, along with Yokohama Rubber president Tadanobu Nagumo and managing corporate officer Seiji Takai.

“Under the concept of a small-scale, integrated manufacturing system, we introduced Yokohama Rubber’s latest technology and facilities for the construction of the new plant that has been designed with sufficient consideration about environmental protection,” said Nagumo at the ceremony. “While we have so far relied on the import from Japan of TB tyres for sale in China, our capability of supplying the tyres to Chinese markets will dramatically increase as a result of the new plant’s completion.”

Suzhou Yokohama Tire was formed in April 2006 with an investment of US$27.1 million by Yokohama Rubber (China) Co., Ltd., the company that controls Yokohama Rubber’s overall Chinese operations. With an annual manufacturing capacity of 340,000 tyres, Suzhou Yokohama Tire is scheduled to begin full operation by May 2009. The number of company employees is anticipated to reach 400 by this time. Yokohama Rubber is investing a total of 9.5 billion yen (£60.17 million) in the construction of the new plant and plans to continue additional investments to expand the capacity in accordance with future sales growth.

At present, Yokohama Rubber operates four manufacturing and sales companies, a tyre sales company and a company controlling these companies to carry out manufacturing and sales activities in China. With the start of operations at Suzhou Yokohama Tire, Yokohama Rubber now operates in China through a total of seven companies.