Yokohama marks opening of NR factory

ERJ staff report (DS)

Tokyo - The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., has officially opened its natural rubber processing factory in Surat Thani Province, southern Thailand. A ceremony was held on May 6, 2010.

In his greeting remarks, Kinya Kawakami, board director and corporate officer of Yokohama Rubber, said, "Yokohama Rubber imports natural rubber from Thailand and Indonesia and Teck Bee Hang is one of the largest Thai suppliers for us. However, Teck Bee Hang's natural rubber processing factory, which mainly supplies to Yokohama Rubber, has been considered less certain in terms of supply stability because of its insecure location near the Malaysian boarder area. The new factory area Surat Thani Province relieves this concern with its better public security. The demand for natural rubber, a nonpetroleum resource, has been increasing year after year, while materialistic precision has improved in accordance with development of higher performance tyres. By operating a natural rubber processing factory as its affiliate, Yokohama Rubber expects to derive various advantages: accumulation of techniques to process natural rubber with high precision and less dispersion, capabilities of controlling physical property and quality, development of high performance tyres with increased mixing rate of natural rubber."

The new factory was constructed by Y. T. Rubber Co., Ltd. (capital: approx. 300 million yen) in which Teck Fu, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Teck Bee Hang, has 5 percent shares, Thaveesak Holdings Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned investment company of VonBundit, has another 5 percent shares and Yokohama owns the rest. With an investment of 1 billion yen, construction has progressed since its start in January 2009. Operation will begin with monthly production capacity of 3,000 tons.

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Press release from Yokohama