On April 8, 2024, in the Special Economic Zone of Kratie Province, Cambodia, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the Cambodian production base of Holmes Tire, marking the addition of new soldiers to China's overseas tire factories.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Zhang Wang, manager of the production department of Zhongqi Overseas Group, announced that the project was officially started, and Zhongqi Jiaojian will adhere to the principle of "safety first, quality first, and efficiency first" to promote the construction of the project with high quality.
In the grand ceremony of the leaders and colleagues to complete the "first shovel of soil", the scene was full of flowers, salutes, and the groundbreaking ceremony was successfully completed, marking the official start of the project of Vomax Cambodia Co., Ltd.
It is reported that the Cambodian tire plant of Formex will cost 190 million US dollars (about 1.368 billion yuan) to cover an area of 40 hectares and have an annual production capacity of 9.2 million high-performance radial tires. It is expected that about 1,500 new jobs will be created, which will better meet the needs of international customers and inject new impetus into the company's globalization strategy.
Cambodia: China's third largest overseas base for tires
The data shows that compared with traditional Southeast Asian tire production bases such as Thailand and Vietnam, Cambodia's tire investment will increase significantly in 2023. At least three Chinese tire companies plan to invest in Cambodia with a total design capacity of 17.7 million tires, including 2.7 million all-steel tires and 15 million semi-steel tires.
Since 2021, at least 6 leading Chinese tire companies have invested more than 11 billion yuan in Cambodia.
At the beginning of 2024, Sailun Group has approved a further investment of 773.69 million to expand its production capacity from 6 million tires per year to 12 million tires, following the announcement in October 2023 to increase the annual production capacity of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles by 6 million tires.
Counting the additional investment of more than 700 million yuan, the total investment of Sailun's PCR expansion project in Cambodia reached 2.25 billion yuan. After completion, the annual output of semi-steel radial tires at Sailun's Cambodia plant will reach 21 million.
GM's Cambodia production base project was officially put into operation in May last year, and it is GM's second overseas production base after the tire production project in Thailand. According to recent reports, GM Cambodia's daily output of tires exceeded 10,000 units, and the production and sales volume exceeded 1 million units in the first quarter. At the same time, GM has increased its investment, with a total investment of 1.495 billion yuan in the second phase of its Cambodia project, with an annual output of 3.5 million semi-steel tires and 750,000 all-steel tires.
In addition to the two tire plants that have been put into operation, Qingdao Shuangxing and Fluxes Tire Cambodia plants have laid the foundation stones, and Wanli Tire and Zhengdao Tire have announced investment plans.
Qingdao Shuangxing Group invested in the construction of an annual output of 8.5 million high-performance radial tires in Cambodia (including 7 million semi-steel radial tires and 1.5 million all-steel radial tires) in Cambodia to complete the filing procedures for development, reform and business in May 2023 and has laid the foundation, and the work of the Cambodian factory is currently progressing in an orderly manner as planned.
Recently, Zhengdao Tire Co., Ltd. announced that it intends to set up Zhengdao Tire (Cambodia) Co., Ltd. in Cambodia to build a project with an annual output of 6 million sets of semi-steel radial tires and 1.2 million sets of all-steel radial tires, which has been recorded.
According to relevant media reports, Vanlead Tire has decided to invest in Cambodia to build a factory. The total investment of the project, up to 500 million US dollars (about 3.63 billion yuan), will be built in two phases. The first phase of the investment is 300 million US dollars, and the second phase is 200 million US dollars, and the project is planned to be implemented in Sihanoukville or Svay Rieng province in Cambodia.
As an important node country of the "Belt and Road" initiative, Cambodia has the advantages of geographical location, raw material cost, labor cost, tax and other advantages, attracting investment from many tire manufacturing enterprises.
At the same time, the United States, as the largest tire importer, Southeast Asia has always been the main overseas production base of Chinese tire manufacturers. In recent years, the demand for tires in Southeast Asia from overseas markets has continued to grow, prompting more companies to pay attention to the global market and increase investment.