Updated: China’s Hixih to expand tire capacity

Jining, China – China’s engineering rubber and tire maker Hixih Rubber Industry Group is planning to build new facilities with 12 million unit annual capacity for passenger car tire, pending regulatory approval.

According to the project’s environmental filing, phase one with half the capacity is scheduled to take 18 months before coming on stream in October 2018, phase two will take 17 months.

Located at Hixih’s existing site in Jining, Shandong province, the project covers an area of 467,000 square metre and has €451 million (3.6 billion yuan) investment earmarked.

When in full operation, it’ll create 2000 jobs and generate €68 million annual profit on €760 million sales.

Last year Hixih saw €4.9 billion overall sales. The group currently has 2.6 million unit annual capacity for truck and bus tires, 8 million for passenger car tires and 3 million for motorcycle tires.

(Updated to remove Hixih's reference to link with major tire maker in its filing, which the Chinese company was subsequently unable to confirm).