Toyo Tire to Establish a Plant and a Subsidiary to Produce Tires in Europe

July 30, 2019

Hyogo, Japan – July 30th, 2019 – Toyo Tire Corporation (Headquarters: Itami City, Hyogo Prefecture; President: Takashi Shimizu) announces to establish a subsidiary in the Republic of Serbia, to construct and operate a new tire manufacturing plant in Indjija City.

Toyo Tire intends to continuously strengthen its business platform by producing highly added value product with timely supply to the global market. In such connection, Toyo Tire announced within the “2017 mid-term plan” to consider a new manufacturing platform with a focus on sustainable growth in 2020 and onwards.

Toyo Tire is supplying tires for the European and Russian market from factories in Japan and Malaysia. As of 2022, the new manufacturing base in Serbia will take on a key role in this regard. This new production portfolio will reinforce our global tire manufacturing and supply system.

IoT (Internet of Things, ex: MES*1) will be fully installed at this plant, which will operate as a sophisticated smart factory. Toyo will take on the challenge for a new level of competitive manufacturing, while achieving high quality at low cost and plan to supply differentiated and highly added value products for luxury passenger vehicles and light trucks within and outside the European market.

*1: MES: Stands for Manufacturing Execution System.

The Republic of Serbia complies with all requirements for Toyo Tire. Outstanding resource of highly skilled workforce but comparatively low wage, integration of automotive industries due to ongoing investment by foreign companies, and a blossoming relationship with Japan. Thus, a particularly attractive business environment is being prepared within Europe.

Toyo Tire will begin construction of the plant in Serbia in May 2020, initiate tire manufacturing operations in January 2022, with a capacity of five million tires annually (based on tires for passenger vehicles) by the summer of 2023.

Source: Toyo Tire Corporation/PR