Plans greenfield project for car radials in south
After completing an investment of Rs 315 crore to double its truck and bus radial tyre capacity from 400,000, JK Tyre & Industries plans to invest Rs 1,200 crore over the next 3-4 years in expanding its capacity. The expansion plans include setting up a greenfield car radial plant in South India.
“Our focus will continue to be in the domestic market, even while we will try to grow in the overseas market,” JK Tyre & Industries chairman HS Singhania said while officially inaugurating its truck and bus radial plant here. The company produces 15.8 million units of tyres globally of its three brands — JK Tyre, Vikrant and Tornel.
“The greenfield project for car radials is likely to come up in one of the southern states — Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh or Tamil Nadu,” JK Tyre & Industries marketing director A S Mehta said. The proposed plant would be set up at an investment of about Rs 400 crore and would have an initial production capacity of 2.5 million units per annum, he added.
The four Indian plants contribute 9.2 million units, while the rest come from the three Mexican plants. By March 2010, the capacity in India would be expanded up to 9.8 million including addition of 500,000 units of car radials at the plant near Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh.
The country’s first state-of-the-art truck and bus radial tyre plant in Mysore would increase its tyre production from 400,000 to 800,000 tyres. “In addition, a major expansion of OTR capacity in Mysore involving an outlay of Rs 120 crore is under implementation and would be completed in early 2010,” he added.
Highlighting the fast strides of JK Tyre, Singhania said, “With the acquisition of Tornel, a tyre manufacturer in Mexico, and four plants in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka and three around Mexico city, JK Tyre had emerged as the 22nd largest global tyre manufacturer and the third largest in India with a sales turnover of over a billion dollars.”