Zhongce Rubber Group Co. Ltd. resumed tire production at its factory in Hangzhou Qiantang New District in China, and the company says its plants in China and Thailand are both running at full capacity to meet customer needs.
ZC Rubber says the first of its 9,200 workers returned to work and resumed production in Feb. 10.
But before that, the company was on the front lines of the global pandemic. The company says it set up a mobile rescue team to provide around-the-clock free tire repair service for the vehicles of medical workers in the Hangzhou area.
As other workers began to emerge from quarantine, seven chain store owners of ZC Auto Space took the initiative to provide free disinfection services for customers.
ZC Rubber says it continues to make sure its spaces are disinfected to "ensure a safe recovery."
"The company disinfects the office area, the factory area and the shuttle bus every day, prepares the masks and takes the temperature for the staff every afternoon" for the health and safety of its team.
ZC Rubber says it is working to maintain its relationships with its suppliers.
"ZC Rubber has always maintained a good relationship with raw materials suppliers home and abroad to ensure the daily production capacity of over 120,000 consumer tires as well as 60,000 truck tires, which can fully meet the needs of domestic and foreign customers."
As for the rest of 2020, ZC Rubber says the global tire industry "will be under unprecedented pressure before the pandemic around the world is under control."
The demand for tires declines quickly due to the quarantine of cities, states, and countries, plus "the turmoil brought by exchange rate, oil price, and stock market. Everyone suffers from the disaster, but we still believe that we will overcome it as we united and resolute. We will be well prepared for the market recovery after the pandemic and will introduce safe and valuable products for all consumers. Also, we will support our distributors all over the world while facing the challenge, and join together in a common endeavor to fight against the virus."
As a way to continue its sales efforts, since March 2 ZC Rubber has been holding live broadcasts with tire experts to explain the technical advantages of its new products.
"The tire industry used to rely on the traditional offline distribution system," said Ge Hongliang, ZC Rubber's marketing manager. "After this outbreak, Chinese tire practitioners, although forced by circumstances, began to take the initiative.
Hongliang says the five live shows have been viewed by 240,000 people, and more than 30,000 sets of tires have been sold, bringing online sales to more than 50 million yuan (more than $7 million.)
"ZC Rubber will actively promote digital production in the future. The construction of the group's first digital plant is currently underway and is expected to result in significant savings in production costs and labor, thereby further strengthening the company's competitive advantage. At the same time, ZC Rubber will focus on the less-affected markets such as Latin America, Africa and so on, to reduce the loss caused by the decline in the EU, the United States, India and other big markets."
The company's President, Shen Jinrong, expressed his confidence in the future.
“The spirit of ZC Rubber, which is hard-working and fearless, will inspire the tires to roll forward. The sale revenue target of 30 billion yuan ($4.3 billion) for year 2020 will not change."
