Whether its raw materials, machinery, research and development or the latest manufacturing trends, this tag provides up-to-the-minute insights into the upstream part of the tyre industry.
On 20 February 2023, the board of directors of Doublestar reviewed and approved the proposal to build a factory in Cambodia. The tyre manufacturer reportedly plans to establish a joint venture with UBE Development Co., Ltd in order to complete the plans.
Yokohama has announced plans to add 100,000 tyres-worth of production capacity to its existing factory in Ise City, Mie Prefecture, Japan.
VMI is celebrating the opening of three new assembly halls at its manufacturing site in Leszno, Poland. This brings VMI’s total available floor space in Poland to almost 30,000 square meters. The expansion of the VMI operation, which is part of technology company TKH, follows a number of years of strong growth in VMI’s core tyre and pharmaceutical business.
The official Chinese website of Nokian Tyres states that the Finnish tyre manufacturer is withdrawing from business in the Chinese market due to its “limited production capacity”.
The European passenger car and light truck tyre (PCLT) import market recovered substantially from its bout of Long Covid in the second half of 2022 as the benefits of local versus remote production took an unexpected hit. A perfect storm of significantly lower freight costs and high European energy costs nudged the dial on the relative competitiveness of imports and domestic PCLT tyre production in the second half of 2022. Looking at the European PCLT tyre market through the prism of imports, leading sector analyst Astutus Research shares with Tyres & Accessories its data demonstrating the effects of a rapidly changing market context. The latest Astutus Research briefing, ‘Supply Dynamics in the European PCLT Tire Industry to 2028’, priced at £995 is available now on Tyrepress.
On 11 January 2023, Guizhou Tyre (also known as Advance Tyre) stated that it has terminated one of its recent tyre manufacturing projects before it got to the construction stage. Guizhou Tyre said its “3 million sets of high-performance all-steel radial tyres” a year construction project was closed down effective 31 December 2022.
With the relaxation of epidemic prevention and control policies, China has experienced a large-scale infection wave since early December. Many tyre factories have experienced or are experiencing worker shortages. The Lunar New Year in China is likely to see hundreds of millions of people to move around the country, leading to a more rapid spread of Covid-19. It is difficult to predict when China will shake off the epidemic’s impact; for the Chinese tyre industry, the current wave of infections is both a challenge and an opportunity.
Goodyear is investing US$200 million (about 1.37 billion yuan, £170 million, 190 million euros) in its Cooper Kun Shan tyre factory. Following the latest investment, the total investment of the Cooper Kun Shan plant is expected to reach $500 million (about 3.42 billion yuan, £410 million, 470 million euros).
Luo Yongli, deputy general manager of the company, recently told a briefing that he is optimistic about the operation of Cheng Shin in 2023. In the past, Cheng Shin has reportedly significantly reduced capital expenditures to combat adversity in the operating environment. But with the overall situation expected to improve, the tyre maker will start expanding production capacity, including launching a 40 million tyre capacity expansion plan at factories in mainland China.
Those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The well-known saying might not be completely transferable to this column, but as we kick-start 2023 analysing the most popular stories on our Tyrepress.com website does help us understand what the major themes of last year were. And a closer look at those themes will reveal which issues are continuing into this year. January’s magazine focuses on the ever-resilient agricultural tyre sector (see Tyres & Accessories, January, page 36 onwards) as well as the latest developments in the TPMS and sensor technology segment (see page 20), but first let’s take a look at the biggest stories of 2022 as recorded online.
In 2022, several significant events took place in China’s tyre industry. These things had a profound impact on the tyre industry not only in 2022, but for a long time.
In order to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus, China has divided the entire country into two areas: high-risk areas and low-risk areas. When the Covid-19 infection is found in a particular place, the government labels it as a “high risk” area and implements stricter epidemic prevention policies. On 4 December 2022, the Sailun Dongying factory was listed as a high-risk area. A day later, on 5 December the local authority adjusted the tyre factory to a low-risk area.
Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce released the “Catalogue of Industries for Encouraging Foreign Investment (2020 Version)”. The Chinese government hopes that foreign businessmen will invest in the industries listed in the document. The trade encouragement catalogue currently in use in China was released in 2020, and the 2022 version will come into force on 1 January 2023.
Shandong Province, one of the leading tyre production areas in China, is once again affected by the Covid-19 epidemic. On December 1, there were 41 new confirmed cases and 623 asymptomatic infections in this area. To ensure production can continue, two tyre companies have announced the implementation of closed-loop management.
At the end of June, Nokian Tyres announced that it was executing a “controlled exit” from Russia. By August Russian news sources were reporting that Nokian was accepting “binding offers” for its Russian tyre plant up until the end of September. At the end of October, Nokian confirmed that it had agreed terms with Tatneft to sell its Russian tyre operations for roughly 400 million euros. More than a month later, Nokian Tyres spokespeople are speaking of “substantial uncertainties” relating to the Tatneft deal.
If you would like the latest news from the Chinese tyre industry in Chinese, visit our partner site TyrepressChina.com. Or click below to continue on Tyrepress.
Doublestar
Yokohama
VMI
Astutus Research
Guizhou Tyre
Kelly Sikkema; Unsplash
Cooper
Cheng Shin
Aron Visuals; Unsplash
Sailun
Alexander Mils; Unsplash
Önder Örtel; Unsplash