TRELLEBORG, Sweden (Feb. 1, 2017) — Trelleborg A.B. is planning a "major investment" in its agricultural/industrial tire plant in Ruma, Serbia, in the coming two years, but the company declined to disclose details yet.
Trelleborg's board of directors approved the investment plan at its board meeting Jan. 31.
While declining to disclose details, Trelleborg noted that Serbia "is well located in Europe considering both logistics and closeness to markets including Ukraine and Russia, and has a favorable cost base."
Trelleborg has owned the Ruma plant since last summer, when it acquired Czech tire and rubber goods maker CGS Holding a.s.
CGS's Mitas business unit last invested in the Ruma plant in 2014 to help it meet rising demand from markets in Southern and Eastern Europe and the Middle East. That project was scheduled to run through mid-2016 and boost annual capacity of bias and radial agricultural tires to 35,000 metric tons.
Mitas, in turn, bought the plant in 2008 from the former GPX International Tire Corp., whose predecessor company, Galaxy Tire & Wheel Inc., had bought it five years earlier.
It opened originally in 1981 and operated under the name Ruma-Guma A.D.