Apollo Tyres plans to invest Rs 2,000 crore in the next three years to increase its production capacity both in the country and abroad.The firm, which plans a greenfield facility in Hungary, is also setting up a plant in Chennai, while increasing the capacity at its Vadodara plant.
"We will invest Rs 2,000 crore in next three years including Euro 200 million for our upcoming plant in Hungary," Apollo Tyres Chief of India Operations Satish Sharma told a news agency.
He said the company would invest around Rs 1,350 crore in setting up the facility in Hungary for which it had bought about 45 hectares of land earlier this year.
The Hungary plant would be the company’s hub to service its passenger car radial tyre buyers in Europe, North America as well as other countries.
The company also plans to augment capacity of passenger car tyre production at its Vadodara unit from the existing 10,000 tyres a day to 15,000 tyres a day by the mid-2009.
Apollo would also increase its truck-bus radial tyres manufacturing capacity at Vadodara near four-fold from the present 300 tyres a day to about 1,100 tyres a day by the middle of next year.
The Vadodara plant would also manufacture off-the-road tyres for which the firm has entered in to a tripartite pact with construction equipment maker BEML and Coal India.
Part of the investment would also go in setting up a production unit in Chennai with a capacity of 20,000 tyres a day.
This too would be achieved by the mid-2009, Sharma said.He, however, declined to give the break -up of the investment in the two domestic plants.
Meanwhile, the firm is also planning to provide after sales support for its truck and bus tyres.
With the increasing radialisation in commercial vehicle tyres, Apollo is setting up a chain of wheel balancing and aligning centres called ‘Trust’.
It is opening its first such centre in Salem, Tamil Nadu, and would later expand the chain to other cities.Courtsey : DD NEWS
