Nokian Tires announced that it will build a new passenger car tire plant in Romania.
The greenfield plant will be located in Oradea, near the Hungarian border in northwestern Romania.
Annual production capacity is 6m tires, with future expansion likely.
The site will also house a storage and shipping warehouse.
The total investment was estimated at around 650 million euros.
Construction would begin in early 2023, with the first tires expected to go into production in late 2024.
Commercial production was scheduled to start in early 2025.
“This investment is an important strategic decision that will enable our future growth. It’s an important step in adding to and building a balanced manufacturing platform.”
The planned number of employees at the Romanian plant is approximately 500 people.
The plant was to focus on manufacturing passenger car and SUV tires with larger rim sizes to be sold primarily in Central Europe.
“Central Europe is an important market for us and the investment demonstrates our commitment [it]said Adrian Kaczmarczyk, senior vice president of supply operations.
“The new site will be strategically located close to our customers. It is the result of over 40 locations and a thorough evaluation of several factors such as the availability of a skilled workforce, logistical advantages and a stable business environment. , it became clear that Oradea was the perfect choice for our new factory.
“We are working to build the industry’s first zero CO2 emission factory,” added Kaczmarczyk.
“The location of the Romanian site supports this goal as it makes use of green energy generated near the site. In addition, we criticize the production process in order to find the most sustainable way to produce our tires. I really appreciate it.”
In June 2022, Nokian Tires’ board of directors decided to initiate the company’s “controlled withdrawal from Russia.”
The company said today that “due to the war and subsequent tightening of sanctions, it is no longer feasible or sustainable to continue doing business in Russia. [we] made a deal to sell [our] Russian operation.
to ensure the supply of ” [our] product, [we] Decided early in the year to move forward [our] It plans to invest in new production capacities in Europe and the Romanian plant is a key component of these plans. ”
Nokian added that it “continues to expand its capacity at its plants in Finland and the United States and aims to be more geographically diversified in its manufacturing operations.”