SEOUL, Korea – Hankook Tire has announced it will build its sixth global manufacturing plant in Chongqing Municipal of China. This newest plant, which is also Hankook’s third plant in China, is expected to solidify the company’s position globally, but particularly in the Chinese market. The company said it also will boost its production scale to become the world’s fifth largest tire company within a few years.
The new plant will be located in Liang Jiang Xin Qu of Chongqing Municipal, which is southwest of China’s biggest industrial and commercial center. A total of $954 million will be invested to build the facility, which will cover an area of approximately 530,000 square meters. The company plans to break ground in the first quarter of 2011, with project completion expected by the end of 2015.
Upon completion, the new plant will produce a total number of 11.5 million passenger car and truck-and-bus tires, generating sales of $1 billion annually. It will also create about 4,600 new jobs in the region.
“Hankook Tire is one of the world’s most dynamically growing tire companies,” said Seung Hwa Suh, vice chairman and CEO. “With the establishment of Hankook Tire’s global sixth plant, Hankook Tire has taken another step toward our goal to strengthen our global foothold and to become a leading global tire company. We will continue to seek for future investment opportunities in order to improve our production capacity and productivity, and will also show our commitment to the local communities.”
Currently, Hankook Tire is operating five production facilities around the globe – two in Korea (Geumsan and Daejeon), two in China (Jiaxing and Jiangsu), and one in Hungary (RÁcalmÁs) – at 100 percent capacity since the third quarter of last year. The five plants have a total production capacity of 87 million units per year. With an additional sixth plant, the production capacity is expected to increase to 100 million units per year.
