NOKIA, Finland (Nov. 8, 2004) — Nokian Tyres P.L.C. is extending and expanding its contract manufacturing agreement with Slovakia's Matador A.S. to boost the off-take production to a million units annually.
Nokian will invest $3.5 million in new machinery for the Matador factory in Puchov, Slovakia, to solidify Matador's production of Nokian passenger tires. Initially, Matador will boost output to 500,000 units by next year from 300,000 now, Nokian said, and eventually double that to 1 million units.
The tires being made by Matador are mainly Nokian-branded passenger tires for the Central European markets. The manufacturing agreement will be valid until year-end 2009 and after that may be renewed for one year at a time.
The new agreement replaces a pact signed in January 2003 for the production of S-, T- and H-rated Nokian-branded summer tires, the companies said.
The deal follows by a few weeks Nokian's signing an outsourcing agreement with GiTi Tire (China) for GiTi—also known as Grandtour Tire China—to make Nokian-brand summer car tires for sale in North America. That deal is for 500,000 tires next year and up to 1.5 million tires annually, Nokian said.