General Science terminates €200m tire plant project

Shanghai, China – China's Jiangsu General Science Technology Co. has dropped plans to build a €200 million joint venture tire plant in Baotou, Inner Mongolia.

In a 28 Dec 2023 stock exchange filing, the company said the project was affected by factors such as the macroeconomic environment, weak demand, industry competition and the domestic Chinese truck & bus tire market situation.

Announced in May, the project was designed to have the capacity to produce 1.3 million high performance radial tires per year, including 1.2 million truck & bus tires, and 100,000 units of off-road tires. (ERJ report)

The market, it said, “is still in the weak recovery stage and cannot meet the expected development progress and development needs of the project,” in the autonomous region of northern China.

The Chinese group added that its decision was made particularly in view of cost, time, and project-planning considerations as well as 'changes in industry demand for internationalisation'.

The project cancellation follows General Science’s recent announcment of plans to expand its recently opened production facility in Cambodia (ERJ report).