Chinese tire maker undeterred by US levies

Miami, Florida — Sentury Tire Americas, importer and distributor of the Landsail and Delinte brands, is undeterred by the recent Department of Commerce final determination on antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese-sourced car and light truck tires.

“We are a global brand with a marketing and manufacturing presence beyond China and the United States,” said Maxwell Wee, director of sales for Sentury Tire Americas, a subsidiary of Qindao Sentury Tire Co. Ltd, which was given the “separate rate companies” duties totaling 56.17 percent of the declared customs value.

“We view this recent decision as a temporary setback and are proceeding with our worldwide expansion.”

Sentury Tire opened a warehouse in Memphis in February to service its customer base in the Northeast and Central states and plans to move to a new headquarters/warehouse in Miami later this month.

In addition, Qingdao Sentury is building a plant near Bangkok, Thailand, to complement its manufacturing capacity in China.

The facility, due on stream this fall, will be capable building the complete line of Landsail and Delinte tires, Sentury Tire said, including new light truck AT, HT and MT tires.

Manufacturing capacity will be built in two phases, starting with 5 million tires annually before expanding to 12 million tires sometime next year.

“We expect our tire sales to continue to be robust for the remainder of 2015 and, even in light of the tariff/duties that are being levied, Sentury Tire still has a programme that will work for our distributors and dealers to maintain their competitiveness,” Wee said in a statement.