Bridgestone’s Russian plant – update

The 2016 opening of a Bridgestone tyre production facility in Russia, as reported by Tyrepress.com on 22 January, is the culmination of a joint project agreed upon almost three years ago. On 12 April 2013, Bridgestone Corporation concluded an investment contract with co-investor Mitsubishi Corporation and with the Ulyanovsk Oblast government and Ulyanovsk Region Development Corporation, to build a ¥37.5 billion (£221 million) passenger car radial tyre plant in the Zavolzhye Industrial Zone in Ulyanovsk Oblast, Russia.

The new facility goes by the name Bridgestone Tire Manufacturing C.I.S. LLC; the operation is 90 per cent owned by Bridgestone Corporation, with Mitsubishi Corporation holding the remainder. It is Bridgestone’s first tyre plant in the Russia/CIS region, and the original plan was for production to reach approximately 12,000 units a day by the second half of 2018 following a start of production in the second half of 2016.