Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. says it plans to construct a new plant to manufacture truck and bus tires in the United States. The initial capital investment willl be $300 million.
The location, proposed to be in West Point, Miss., is awaiting legislative approval from the state, which is scheduled to take place on Friday, April 26, according to Yokohama.
Under the company's plan, construction of the facility will begin by September of this year, with tire production beginning in October 2015. The plant's annual production capacity upon completion of the first phase of construction will be 1 million tires.
Yokohama Tire Corp. provides truck and bus tires to the United States and Canada through:
1. GTY Tire Co., a U.S. joint venture company (with Continental Tire the Americas LLC) that manufactures truck and bus tires; and
2. export from Japan and Thailand.
Yokohama Rubber, however, says it "considered it necessary to build the new plant so as to accommodate the increasingly growing demand" for its brand and to "further strengthen a system aimed at local production for local consumption."
If the plan receives legislative approval, the new plant will be built on a 500-acre parcel of land. It represents "Phase I" of Yokohama's overall plan for the site.
"Potential expansions could increase the original business size up to four times or so in scale in accordance with future business growth," adds Yokohama.
The production capacity of the GTY plant, which is located in Mount Vernon, Ill., is 3,900 truck tires per day, according to the 2013 Modern Tire Dealer Facts Issue. The majority of that production is branded by Continental.
