Kenda to build 2nd Vietnam plant

DONG NAI PROVINCE, Vietnam (Oct. 5, 2015) — Taiwan's Kenda Rubber Industrial Co. Ltd. is expanding again, with plans to build a $160 million car and light truck tire plant in Vietnam's Dong Nai Province.

The factory will be capable of producing 10,000 tires a day in the the project's first phase, according to Jimmy Yang, president of American Kenda Rubber Industrial Co. Ltd.

Kenda expects to start construction on the plant in the first quarter next year, with tire production to start by the fourth quarter of 2017, Mr. Yang said. The plant will be built on a 120-plus acre site and employ 600 at start-up. Employment will ramp up to 1,500 at full capacity, he said.

The plant, Kenda's second in this Southeast Asian nation and seventh overall, will be built in the Giang Dien Industrial Zone in southern Dong Nai Province, where Kenda Rubber (Vietnam) Co. Ltd. recently signed a land-lease agreement for about 100 acres with the zone's development corporation, according to Sonadezi Corp., the site's developer.

The industrial park is located northwest of Ho Chi Minh City. In an earlier interview with Tire Business, Mr. Yang indicated Kenda eventually would expand car and light truck tire capacity in Vietnam to 20,000 units daily.

The tire maker's other factory in Vietnam, in Thong Nhat, Dong Nai, opened in 1997 and produces industrial and motorcycle tires.

Kenda also is planning to double consumer tire capacity at its headquarters plant in Yun-Lin, Taiwan, to 10,000 units a day by year-end 2016, Mr. Yang said in the earlier interview with Tire Business, and is building a truck tire plant in China.

Kenda is considered the 28th largest tire maker in the world, with fiscal 2014 sales of $1.2 billion, according to Tire Business' annual ranking of tire makers.