General Science starts up tire projects in China, Thailand

Wuxi, China – Jiangsu General Technology Co. (General Science) has started production at two recently announced major expansion projects in China and Thailand.

The projects were both announced just under a year ago and were started up 28 June, said the Chinese tire group in a July statement.

Combined the new units add the capacity to produce 16 million units of semi-steel passenger car radial (PCR) tires to the group’s overall capacity.

Commissioning of the projects "is an important strategic move for General Science to actively respond to the development trend of the global tire industry.”

The units, added General Science, provide “advantageous production capacity” as the group has been “unable to meet market demand” with its original capacity.

General Science broke ground on the Yuan1.9 billion (€240 million) expansion programme in Thailand last September, to add capacity for 6 million units of PCR tires and 500,000 truck and bus radial (TBR) tires.

Earlier last month, the group said it was changing the scope of the project to produce 10 million units of PCR tires and dropping the TBR unit. (ERJ report)

In Wuxi, General Science unveiled plans to upgrade its tire manufacturing plant in November last year to include the production of PCR tires. (ERJ report)

The Yuan881 million project, it said, adds capacity to produce 6 million units per year of PCR, in addition to the existing 10 million units per year of TBR tires.

According to the group, the Thai factory has reached agreements to supply “leading customers in North America, Europe and Southeast Asia.”

The tire maker previously stated that the first phase of the factory had reached full production with both sales and orders “exceeding demand.”