Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. held an opening ceremony earlier today (Japanese time) to commemorate the completion of its radial truck and bus tire manufacturing plant in Suzhou City, China.
The ceremony for Suzhou Yokohama Tire Co. Ltd. was hosted by Yokohama President and Director Tadanobu Nagumo and Managing Corporate Officer Seiji Takai. It was attended by approximately 280 invited guests, including tire distributors in many Chinese provinces and Suzhou City administrators.
"Under the concept of a small-scale, integrated manufacturing system, we introduced Yokohama Rubber's latest technology and facilities for the construction of the new plant that has been designed with sufficient consideration about environmental protection," said Nagumo.
"While we have so far relied on the import from Japan of (truck and bus) tires for sale in China, our capability of supplying the tires to Chinese markets will dramatically increase as a result of the new plant's completion."
Suzhou Yokohama Tire was formed in April 2006 with an investment of $27.1 million dollars by the parent company's Yokohama Rubber (China) Co. Ltd. subsidiary. It has an annual manufacturing capacity of 340,000 tires, and is scheduled to begin full plant operation by May 2009.
With the grand opening, Yokohama Rubber operates truck and bus tire factories in four countries: Japan, China, the United States and Thailand and China.
