Tokyo - The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., today announced that it established in April Yokohama Industrial Products Europe GmbH in Düsseldorf, Germany, as new Multiple Business base for Yokohama Rubber. The new company's capital of 93,000 Euro was fully paid by Yokohama Rubber that expects the subsidiary to achieve sales of 1 billion yen after 3 years from now.

The new company will begin delivering high-pressure hoses to Japanese construction machinery makers in Europe in May this year. Its goal is to achieve just-in-time supply of high-pressure hoses and metal fittings by locally assembling them in cooperation with an European partner. For Yokohama Rubber that has already set up high-pressure hoses and metal fitting assembly plants in the United States, Thailand and China, the new company represents its fourth assembly base in the world. The new company will also approach the replacement market with the "Exceed" high-pressure hoses Yokohama Rubber had newly developed for sale in overseas. Exceed is compliant with the ISO 18752 international standard.

Yokohama Rubber has successful lines of Multiple Business products including hoses, sealants and adhesives and other industrial products. For the future, Yokohama Rubber plans to build up the new company into a corporate bridgehead, from which Multiple Business can be expanded in Europe where many business opportunities may be offered by a lot of local oil majors and large resource-related companies. Also, Europe's good accessibility to East Europe, Central Asia, Middle East and Africa will help Yokohama Rubber's efforts to meet demand from those markets. Yokohama Rubber therefore plans to transfer its functions of sales and marketing of Multiple Business products in addition to high-pressure hoses for these markets from Japan to the new European base one after another.