Sailun postpones Vietnam expansion start-up until 2025

Shanghai, China - Sailun Group has delayed a planned expansion at its plant in Vietnam, due to issues around logistics and funding for completion of the project.

The Chinese tire maker announced the third phase of the expansion project at the Go Dau factory in Vietnam in January 2021. (ERJ report)

The investment involves the addition of capacity to produce 3 million passenger tires, 1 million truck and bus radial tires and 50,000 tonnes of off-road tires per year.

The project was initially set for operation by March this year, but in a 4 April stock exchange filing, Sailun said the completion timeline had moved by a year to March 2025.

Sailun said the ‘large construction scale of the project’ as well as issues such as Covid, labour-shortages and supply-chain disruption had led to delayed delivery of equipment.

These factors made it difficult to secure funding for the completion of the project within the original schedule, according to the disclosure statement.

The scope of the project remains unchanged to bring total annual production capacity to 13 million passenger car tires, 2.4 million truck & bus tires as well as 85,000 tonnes of off-road tires.