Singapore unit to bolster Yokohama’s buying power

Tokyo ? Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd has established a subsidiary in Singapore to help improve its global  materials procurement activities, the company announced 14 May.

The new subsidiary, called Yokohama Rubber Singapore Pte. Ltd, is capitalised at $20 million (€17.5 million), and is scheduled to begin full operations from mid-May.

Yokohama Rubber had a branch office in Singapore engaged in the procurement of natural rubber from Southeast Asian nations.

The decision to establish a local subsidiary is in line with a group plan to raise the efficiency of its global raw material procurement operations, the Japanese firm added.

The new subsidiary initially will be engaged in procuring natural rubber for Yokohama Rubber's Japan plants in fiscal 2015.

The plan is, then, to expand the natural rubber procurement business to also cover the needs of the group's overseas plants from fiscal 2016.

In the future, said Yokohama, operations will be expanded to include the procurement of raw materials other than natural rubber.

Yokohama also announced on 14 May that Shigeo Komatsu will be the president of its Singapore subsidiary.

Komatsu will continue to hold his current position of director and managing corporate officer, head of global procurement div., in charge of corporate finance & accounting dept., president of Yokohamagomu Finance Co. Ltd.