Tokyo – The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., today announced that it would increase the annual production capacity of the passenger car and light truck (PC/LT) tire plant of Yokohama Tire Manufacturing (Thailand) Co., Ltd. by 1.4 million tires for the third-term expansion, expanding it to 4 million tires. Yokohama Rubber plans to start the increased production in April 2011, and it will make an investment of 9.7 billion yen.

Yokohama Tire Manufacturing (Thailand) is a tire manufacturer/distributor established in January 2004 in Rayong Province. Its site area of 420,000 square meters is the largest among the tire plants of the Yokohama Rubber group around the world. It has already been producing tires for trucks and buses since April 2005, and PC/LT tires since November 2006.

The PC/LT tire plant began operating with an annual production capacity of 1.4 million tires. The production capacity was going to be expanded to 2.6 million tires within the fiscal year ended March 31, 2010, through the second-term expansion formulated in March 2007, which was interrupted by Lehman Shock in the fall of 2008 and forced to postpone its completion until April 2011. As of March 2010, the plant's annual production capacity stands at 1.9 million tires.