Yokohama will construct a plant in Russia

The request of the Japanese company Yokohama Rubber Company for plant building on the territory of the special economic zone "Lipetsk" is approved by the supervisory board which directed it for consideration by �RosOEZ�. The decision about giving Yokohama Rubber the status of resident of special economic zone will be made till the weekend, informs the site �Automobile components in Russia� referring to the newspaper "Vedomosti".
Residents of special economic zone "Lipetsk" receive privileges under the profit tax at the rate of 20 % and are tax-exempt on property, transport and ground taxes for five years. Yokohama Rubber intends to produce tires in 2011 at its own plant in special economic zone "Lipetsk". The first plant will produce 1.4 million units and the designed capacity is 3.5 million units per year. The volume of investments will make 11 billion rubles. There will be 977 new workplaces at the enterprise at first and further 1027 more people will receive work there.
Yokohama Rubber occupies now about 3 % of the Russian tire market and after start of manufacture the plant needs to make considerable efforts for brand promotion, moreover its competitors in Russia are Nokian and Michelin which have already had their own production here. In the nearest future Pirelli will join them starting the tire plant in 2009 in Togliatti with capacity of 4.2 million tires per year.
The new report �Market of automobile components and spare parts in Russia-2008� gives information that figures of dynamics of the Russian tire market during several last years remain high enough that allows experts to regard it as rather perspective. According to the agency "AUTOSTAT" the total market volume in 2005 was estimated in 57 million units and in 2006-2007 this figure already reached 60 million and about 75 % from this quantity are traditionally tires for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. This year the tendency of demand increase for tire covers has remained and the total volume of the secondary market only is estimated in 56.4 million units and almost $3.5 billion. Thus, the segment of tire covers for cars of foreign brands is a little bit more modest in terms of volume - there is direct dependence of car number registered in STSI.