Marangoni to provide Sri Lanka tire plant technology
1 Jul 2016
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Rovereto, Italy – Marangoni has dismissed media reports suggesting that it plans to build a $75-million (€66-million) tire plant in Sri Lanka, insisting instead that its involvement will be “indirect”.
The Sri Lankan government, on 15 June, approved a proposal to establish a €66-million, 3-million-unit tire plant at Gonapola, in the country's Horana district.
In a statement provided to ERJ, the Italian company said that local news report referred to a “hypotethical transfer of technology to a Sri Lanka-based investor – Ceylon Steel Corporation – discussed as part of a possible joint venture in the passenger car tire sector.”
Marangoni explained that after the suspension of its passenger car tire production in Europe in 2014, the company has begun talks to sell its “production plants” to Ceylon Steel Corp.
The company’s PCR production was mainly based in its plant in Anagni, Rome, which was closed down in 2013 as part of Marangoni’s pull-out of the passenger car tire segment.
“The discussed possible joint venture has been based upon the transfer of Anagni equipment and technology,” the Rovereto-based company explained to ERJ.
Marangoni also confirmed that the Anagni plant had a capacity of 3 million units a year.
Separately from this investment, Marangoni has been operating its own industrial tire manufacturing facilities in Sri Lanka since 2008.
The Italian company has confirmed to ERJ that industrial tires are not being discussed with their Sri Lankan partners.
Sri Lanka has an annual income of roughly $470-million from the export of pneumatic and retreated rubber tires and tubes. The figure is nearly 62 percent of the total rubber exports of Sri Lanka.
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