Linglong boss highlights need for partnerships at Turin summit

Addressing a 7 Dec meeting of strategic suppliers and distributors from around the world, Wang focused particularly on Linglong’s plans to build a major tire manufacturing plant in Serbia.

In August, Linglong signed an agreement with the Serbian government to build an €860-million facility in the Zrenjanin free trade zone with capacity to produce 13.62 million tires/year by 2025.

Linglong which is pursuing a “5+3” strategy – five production plants at home and three overseas – opened its first foreign-based factory in Chonburi, Thailand in 2014.

There, Wang said he hoped that the global partners “could provide more new products as well as new technology for Linglong’s research and development efforts.”

The goal, he added, is to “improve the company's core technology and key technologies, promoting the upgrading of its industrial structure, brand promotion and global market share.”

The Linglong boss went on to signal a need for a new “model of cooperation which could improve product quality stability, production continuity and shorten the supply cycle.”

Global partnerships, he said, could also help establish information-sharing and communication mechanisms to jointly address market challenges and improve market competitiveness.

Wang concluded by saying that Linglong “would closely follow the European market trend” and increase its efforts in the development of new products and new brands.