Major tyre industry player Sinochem Holdings claims a superlative with Guilin Lanyu Aviation Tyre Development Co., Ltd., announcing that its subsidiary began operation as China’s first major civil aircraft tyre production line on 23 November 2024. Sinochem may need to further elucidate its use of the word ‘first,’ however, as Sentury Tire has been talking about producing aircraft tyres for civil applications for some time now. Semantics aside, Sinochem shares in a statement that the Guilin Lanyu plant in southern China has a capacity to produce 100,000 civil aircraft tyres annually, a quantity sufficient to meet 40 per cent of the country’s current demand for these products.