Continental Holds China Tyre Plant Groundbreaking
Continental today (10 October 2008) broke ground for its new tyre production plant in Hefei, Anhui Province, China. Located in Hefei’s New and High Technology Industrial Development Zone, the first phase of Conti’s new plant will cover around 70,000 square metres of construction area. The China factory project is the first factory investment of Continental’s Passenger and Light Truck Division has made in China. According to a company statement it is the largest Foreign Direct Investment project in Anhui Province so far.
“Continental has 137 years of experience with rubber and especially with tyres. Nowadays we produce about 120 million tyres a year worldwide. We will invest around 185 million euros in the Hefei plant, which is scheduled to be completed by 2010. We are aiming for an annual production of four million PLT tyres here in Hefei in the first step. In the long run our capacity should exceed 10 million tyres a year by far”, Wente said. “This will be a next step forward to achieve our goal of strengthening our Asian business”, he explained.