Mitas to expand Serbia tyre factory

Mitas has announced plans to invest the expansion of its Ruma, Serbia factory. In the first part of the planned upgrades, Mitas will build a new logistics centre. According to the company, this will help satisfy the rising demand from South European, East European and Middle East markets. In practice this means Mitas will soon also prepare an upgrade of Ruma’s production capacities for radial agricultural and forestry tyres. Mitas’ Serbian factory now produces both bias and radial agricultural tyres. The investment will be completed in mid-2016, at which point the Ruma plant will have a capacity of 35,000 tonnes a year.

“Building a new logistic centre will help us stage a further expansion of the Ruma factory, which plays a key role in supplying the new, fast-growing markets for radial agricultural and forestry tyres,” said Jaroslav Čechura, Mitas’ CEO. “The Ruma factory upgrade follows our large investments in Otrokovice (CZE) and Charles City (USA). Building a plant in North America proved a good decision as our main competitors in the agricultural tyres segment are now following Mitas’ example.”

“Ruma is Mitas´ third-largest factory, and its importance is growing. Production facilities in Ruma are top-class thanks to our continuous investments in recent years,” said plant director Ivo Somr. “Our aim is to meet the demand of our customers and provide them with the best-quality tyres. Precise storing capacities play an important role in delivering the best-quality product,” Somr added.

The Ruma factory was built in 1981, and Mitas acquired the plant in 2008. Since then, Mitas has regularly invested in the factory. In 2012, there was a 3.5 million euro expansion of production capacity of radial tractor and combine tyres.