The international technology corporation Continental finalised the site selection process for its new passenger and light truck tyres production facility in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region and decided to build it in the Province of Rayong in Thailand.
In the first phase, the investment into this new tyre plant will amount to around €250 million, with a planned production of about 4 million passenger and light truck tyres (PLT) per year by 2022. The start of operations is planned for 2019 and Continental will create around 900 new jobs in Thailand.
This investment is said to be an essential part of the long-term growth strategy from Continental’s “Vision 2025”, which aims to expand and balance its global manufacturing footprint to best serve its customers in all regions.
The site for Continental’s new greenfield tyre plant in the Province of Rayong complies with all requirements. It is close to the targeted markets and customers, offers a good infrastructure with only 140km distance to the city of Bangkok, offers a deep-sea port in Laem Chabang 60km away, and universities with a technical profile located nearby.
The size of the site is about 750,000 sq m, which potentially allows an expanded production capacity of up to 25 million tyres per year. Continental expects the start of construction and groundbreaking in the course of 2017.
Since 1999, Continental has ramped up five greenfield tyre plants – in Timisoara (Romania), Camacari (Brazil), Hefei (China), Kaluga (Russia) and Sumter (USA). The project in Rayong (Thailand) and the greenfield project for commercial vehicle tyres in Clinton, Mississippi (USA) will extend Continental`s global tyres production footprint of 21 tyre plants in 17 countries.
In the APAC region, Continental currently is operating five tyre plants: Hefei (China), Alor Setar (Malaysia), Petaling Jaya (Malaysia), Modipuram (India) and Kalutara (Sri Lanka). Since the start of Continental’s Vision 2025, the Tyre Division has invested more than three billion euros to further expand its production as well as research and development facilities worldwide. In 2016, Continental produced more than 150 million passenger car tyres and truck tyres.
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