Pirelli Tyres Unveils $255 Million Investment Plan For Turkey
Production capacity to be doubled
Milan/Istanbul, April 30, 1999 - Pirelli has decided to set in motion a new investment plan with a global value of $255 million to strengthen its tyre operations in Turkey. The initiative takes its place in the company strategy aimed at increasing the capacity of high productivity plants with leading edge technological and quality standards. The plan has been approved by the Turkish Ministry of the Treasury.
The investment plan will enable the Group's subsidiary, Turk Pirelli Lastikleri SA, to double its daily production of radial ply car and truck tyres from the current 12,500 to 24,000 units per day. The increase in production is destined for both the domestic market and export to European Community countries.
In that way, Pirelli Tyres will strengthen its presence in Turkey as a supply base, providing high quality tyres at a competitive price to the European area. The Pirelli tyre production centre in the country is its factory at Izmit, the industrial city about 100 kilometres east of Istanbul; with around 1,200 employees on a 210,000 square metres site, the plant will achieve a production rate of 8 million tyres a year, of which 10% will be " giants" for heavy trucks and buses.
Built in 1962, the Izmit factory is one of Pirelli's most advanced industrial plants in terms of both volume and quality and has one of the highest productivity levels in the Group. In 1994, together with a Volvo installation, the Turkish factory became the first outside Japan to receive the " TPM Award" , the most important Japanese accolade for industrial quality, confirmation of the quality levels of both the manufacturing process and product achieved by the facility.
A second factory at Izmit is dedicated to the production of steel cord, a reinforcing component for " all steel" car and truck radial tyres; almost half of this unit's 28,000 ton annual output is supplied to third parties.
In addition, Turk Pirelli Energji AS has been in operation since 1998 with a 24 MegaWatt energy cogeneration plant, 40% of which also goes to third parties.