Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. has announced it will construct a passenger tire plant in the state of Haryana adjacent to Delhi, India. The estimated investment in building the plant is 4.4 billion yen (approximately $53 million).
After the first phase is completed in July 2014, the plant will have an annual production capacity of 700,000 tires.
In April 2008, Yokohama signed a contract with Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corp. Ltd. of India to acquire a business site of 25 acres in the corporation's Industrial Estate Bahadurgarh. But construction of the tire plant was initially postponed due to recession and some other factors.
The tire plant wil serve as the production base of Yokohama India Pvt. Ltd., established in April 2007 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yokohama Rubber. Yokohama India sells passenger tires for the replacement tire market through its own sales network.
"The company is making an effort to expand sales by creating an image of a high-grade brand tire through placing an emphasis on high performance and high quality that characterize Yokohama-brand tires," says Yokohama.
In 2011, approximately 3 million new cars were sold in India. In 2020, the market is expected to exceed 7 million cars. Yokohama adds that it plans to proactively take this as a business opportunity and upgrade its business model from "sale of imported products" to "local production/consumption."
The Industrial Estate Bahadurgarh is located approximately 40 kilometers west of Delhi, the largest commercial district in India, and some 45 minutes from Delhi International Airport.
