Tokyo-The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., today announced that it would purchase land of 193,327 square meters adjacent to the plant of Yokohama Tire Manufacturing (Thailand) Co., Ltd., by the end of December of this year. With the addition of the newly purchased land, the total plant site area of the subsidiary will be more than doubled to 417,427 square meters, thus giving the plant the site area larger than any other plant of Yokohama Rubber and its subsidiaries.

Yokohama Rubber purchases the additional land as part of a series of its tire production capacity expansions it has been implementing in Japan, Philippines, China and Thailand. The purchase will further strengthen the company? global production capability in order to respond to the increasingly strong tire demand around the world and increase its tire sales. Yokohama Rubber has chosen Thailand as the best country for constructing a high-quality and low-cost plant because it provides high quality labor power, tax incentives for investment by a foreign company and better infrastructures.

Yokohama Tire Manufacturing (Thailand) Co., Ltd., was founded in January 2004 as Yokohama Rubber? subsidiary for manufacturing and marketing truck/bus steel radial tires mainly for export. As was planned originally, the subsidiary will begin its first-phase operation in April 2005 with annual production capacity of 350,000 tires. With the second-phase expansion plan, the production capacity will be expanded to 700,000 tires a year. Yokohama Rubber plans to make the plant of the subsidiary its largest, comprehensive tire production base in overseas by increasing production items one after another in the future.

Location of the land:Industrial Park, Amata City, Rayong Prefecture, Thailand
Purchased area:193,327 square meters*
*The total site area of the plant will be 417,427 square meters by combining the area that was already purchased.