Groundbreaking for Sumitomo’s Turkish factory

As work on Sumitomo Rubber Industries’ tyre plant in Brazil nears completion, groundbreaking was held for the company’s second tyre factory outside of Asia. On 18 September, a groundbreaking ceremony was conducted at the Sumitomo Rubber AKO Lastik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. (SAT) factory site in Turkey’s Cankiri Province. Some fifty people took part in the ceremony, including Sumitomo’s president and CEO Ikuji Ikeda and Mr. Özcan, chairman of Sumitomo, Falken and Dunlop distributor and SAT 20 per cent shareholder Abdulkadir Özcan Lastik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S.

Turkey was chosen as a site for the new plant as demand for passenger car tyres is expected to increase there and due to its strategic location near the European, Middle Eastern, North African and Russian markets, said Sumitomo. Production is scheduled to start in July 2015 and the US$500 million facility should produce 30,000 tyres a day by late 2019. Norifumi Fujimoto has been appointed the Turkish factory’s representative.