Tokyo - The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., today announced that a natural rubber processing factory the company had constructed in Surat Thani Province, southern Thailand, has recently completed. Its opening ceremony was locally held on May 6, 2010.

Among a total of 90 participants in the ceremony were Governor of Surat Thani Province, government officers, construction company executives, people representing joint investment partners Teck Bee Hang Co., Ltd., and VonBundit Co., Ltd., raw material suppliers, and Kinya Kawakami, board director and corporate officer of Yokohama Rubber.

In his greeting remarks, Kawakami said, "Yokohama Rubber imports natural rubber from Thailand and Indonesia and Teck Bee Hang is one of the largest Thai suppliers for us. However, Teck Bee Hang's natural rubber processing factory, which mainly supplies to Yokohama Rubber, has been considered less certain in terms of supply stability because of its insecure location near the Malaysian boarder area. The new factory area Surat Thani Province relieves this concern with its better public security. The demand for natural rubber, a nonpetroleum resource, has been increasing year after year, while materialistic precision has improved in accordance with development of higher performance tires. By operating a natural rubber processing factory as its affiliate, Yokohama Rubber expects to derive various advantages: accumulation of techniques to process natural rubber with high precision and less dispersion, capabilities of controlling physical property and quality, development of high performance tires with increased mixing rate of natural rubber."

The new factory was constructed by Y. T. Rubber Co., Ltd. (capital: approx. 300 million yen) in which Teck Fu, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Teck Bee Hang, has 5 percent shares, Thaveesak Holdings Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned investment company of VonBundit, has another 5 percent shares and Yokohama owns the rest. With an investment of 1 billion yen, construction has progressed since its start in January 2009. Operation will begin with monthly production capacity of 3,000 tons.