China’s Sailun Group says it has revised the timetable for expanding production at its factory in Vietnam. Instead of starting up its operations by March 2024, the tyre maker will now complete the expansion by March 2025, it said in an April stock exchange filing.
The expansion, now targeted for next year, will add a further 3 million semi-steel radials, 1 million all-steel radials and 50,000 tonnes of off-highway tyres to its annual capacities.
Explaining the delay, Sailun commented on the size of the project and the complex process links involved. It also says that the recent pandemic created disruptions to the materials supply chain and led to longer than anticipated delivery times for equipment.
In September 2022, the China Securities Regulatory Commission approved Sailun’s plan to issue some 2 billion yuan in convertible corporate bonds. At the time, the tyre maker said that it would use 1.4 billion yuan of the funds raised to expand its Vietnam plant’s production capacities.
Sailun operates four tyre factories. Three of these are in China (located in Qingdao, Shenyang and Dongying) and the fourth, is in Vietnam.