Groundbreaking held for Hankook plant no. 7

Less than a month after breaking ground on its Liang Jiang Xin Qu factory in China’s Chongqing region, Hankook Tire has held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new plant in Indonesia. This facility, in Lippo Cikarang, Bekasi, West Java, will become the Korean tyre maker’s seventh global plant. Four production facilities on a 60 hectare site will cater to North American and Middle East export markets and serve as a regional business hub for the emerging Asian market.

The groundbreaking ceremony was attended by Indonesian and Korean government representatives, who were welcomed by Hankook Tire vice-chairman and CEO Seung Hwa Suh and executive vice-president & CSFO Hyun Bum Cho. Speaking to the invited guests, Suh said “the new plant will be an important opportunity in raising our global status. The decision to establishing the plant in Indonesia, which is in the centre of the global market, will be a benefit both the Indonesian economy and Hankook Tire.”

Stage 1 work on the facility involves a US$353 million investment; this will give the Lippo Cikarang plant an initial production capacity of some six million passenger car and light truck tyres per annum. By 2014 the factory should employ around 1,400 people, and Hankook expects to add a further 2,800 jobs by 2018. The tyre maker states its investment in Indonesia forms part of its mid-term goal of producing 100 million tyres annually by 2014; additional projects to meet this target include Hankook’s third plant in China and work on the second stage of its Rácalmás plant in Hungary, which when complete will accommodate the production of 12 million tyres a year for the European market.