Continental builds eco-friendly tire plant in Hefei

Shanghai, October 10 (Gasgoo.com) German Continental AG, Europe's second-largest auto-parts and tire maker, broke ground today for its premium tire plant in Hefei city, Anhui province, the local media reported.

Continental will invest a total EUR 185 million (US$250 mln) in the plant. Production is due to start at the beginning of 2010. In the long term, Continental expects to produce 4 million eco-friendly car tires annually at the plant, mostly for the rapidly expanding Chinese market.

The plant will employ more than 1,100 people, according to an earlier report. For over 10 years, the German province of Lower Saxony has had an exchange program with the University of Hefei. As a result, Hefei has many highly qualified Chinese workers who can speak German.

On the environmentally-friendly side of the project, Continental said the plant will have cutting-edge technologies for the biological purification of pollutants, the first time ever Continental has applied such technology to a tire production plant. The project is built in line with EU standards and has already approved by the State Bureau of Environmental Protection.

Continental started exporting to China 10 years ago. But the firm, which set up its first China office in January 2006, is a relative late-comer to the country compared with Goodyear Tire & Rubber and Michelin, which began local production in the mid-1990s.