Based on the upcoming operation of the third-phase en- gineering of the current project, Sumitomo Rubber (Hunan) Co., Ltd. formally started the 10.50 million units/year of radi- al tire expansion project in August 2015. After the 18-month construction, the annual production capacity will reach 21 million units by February 2017.

The first-phase and second-phase engineering of the current project of Sumitomo (Hunan) Company has been completed to be put into production and pass the acceptance, with the production capacity of 15,000 million units/day; and the third-phase engineering is predicted to be completed and put into production soon. The company will reach the pro- duction capacity scale of 10.50 million units (30,000 units/ day) of passenger car tires annually.

With total investment of RMB 1.538 Billion Yuan, the expansion project was established by two stages, in which the first-phase engineering can produce 6.0025 million units of tires annually. This project totally covers an area of 136,809 m2, mainly including the main workshops of 65,256 m2 and two mixing workshops of 35,450 m2 and 7,330 m2 respectively.

It is introduced that the rate of capacity utilization of Sumitomo Company was affected by the market. The out- put of Hunan Plant was 13,000 tires/day in October, which decreased by 1,000 units/day than that in September. In the past two months, the output has maintained 13,000 units/day. The output of Changshu Plant was also reduced substantially, which decreased by 5,000 units/day compared with that in the noontide. Changshu Plant has formed the annual produc- tion capacity of 11.27 million units of radial tires.