Tokyo - The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd. announced today that its Russian tire manufacturing and sales subsidiary, LLC Yokohama R.P.Z. carried out a tree-planting ceremony on October 12 at its plant grounds in the Special Economic Zone in Lipetsk. The ceremony was a first-stage planting, conducted as a part of the Yokohama Rubber Group's worldwide Yokohama Forever Forest Project. The tree planting was well attended by the local government and business officials, including Andrey Kozoderov, Deputy Governor for Investment, Lipetsk Region Administration, Vladimir Lavrentiev, Head of the Department of Industry of Lipetsk Region, and Ivan Koshelev, General Director of JSC Special Economic Zone Lipetsk. These distinguished guests joined supporters of the special economic zone, Shigeru Nakano, General Director of LLC Yokohama R.P.Z. and company employees and their family members. In total, 283 festival attendees planted about 1,700 trees.

The Yokohama Rubber Group has been carrying out the Yokohama Forever Forest Project since 2007, with a goal of planting 500,000 trees at domestic and overseas production sites by the company's 100th anniversary in 2017. The tree-planting method employed during this project was developed by Dr. Akira Miyawaki, plant ecologist and professor emeritus of Yokohama National University. In line with Dr. Miyawaki's proposal for creating "forever forests" by planting trees that are most suitable to the specific land and region, the tree-planting ceremony attendees planted six varieties of trees suitable to Lipetsk region. The tree planting at LLC Yokohama R.P.Z. brings the total number of trees planted under the Yokohama Forever Forest Project to 315,000 as of October 2013.

LLC Yokohama R.P.Z. was established in December 2008 to initiate tire production in Russia and has been manufacturing tires since the completion of its plant in May 2012. The plant produces passenger car tires, such as the "C.drive2" and the studded tire "ice GUARD iG35", both of which are available in 13-18 inch internal diameters and are marketed in the Russia.