Bridgestone Corporation, the world's largest tire and rubber company, will build a factory in the Ulyanovsk region, a news report said Monday.
The plant will begin production in the first half of 2016, Vedomosti reported. The plant is expected to produce over 4.4 million tires per year, or 12,000 tires per day, by the second half of 2018 and will primarily focus on winter tires for the local market.
The new plant will be managed by Bridgestone Tire Manufacturing C.I.S., a tire-manufacturing company established jointly by Japanese multinationals Bridgestone and Mitsubishi.
Bridgestone Corporation will take a 90 percent equity position in the company, and Mitsubishi will take 10 percent. The total investment in the project by the two companies will be about 12.5 billion rubles ($400 million).
Bridgestone explained their choice in partners by pointing out that they already had experience working with Mitsubishi in a joint venture producing tires in Thailand.
"In June, the companies will sign an agreement of land purchase, and by the end of July, we expect to complete all the necessary procedures to begin construction," Dmitry Ryabov, general director of the Ulyanovsk region's Development Corporation, told the business daily.
