Linglong mulls two more overseas sites and facility upgrade

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Guangzhou, China – Linglong is planning two more overseas production sites, and will determine the location of one within this year, according to the company’s chairman Wang Feng.

“Our Thailand factory has been operating at full capacity,” said Wang at the recent China Rubber Conference held in Guangzhou, “We also plan to make the factory smarter and raise its capacity by 10% or 20%.”

According to the chairman, the new expansion plan will increase the total annual production capacity of the Chinese tire maker to over 90 million units.

Linglong’s $700-million Thai plant with 12 million unit per year passenger car tire capacity and 1.2 million per year truck and bus tire capacity went into full operation in 2015.

The company has three domestic sites, one in its headquarters city Yantai, Shandong, one in nearby Dezhou and a third in Liuzhou, Guangxi.

A full report on Longlong’s expansion plans will appear in our annual China Tire Report, a supplement published with the June/July issue of ERJ print magazine.