The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., which is based in Tokyo, announced that its first plant in the U.S. to be built from the ground up opened on Oct.2.
The company manufactures tires for light trucks, passenger cars, commercial trucks and buses, and off-the-road mining and construction applications.
The company invested $300 million in the plant which will create 500 jobs.
“The grand opening of our first U.S.-built plant is truly a historic day for Yokohama,” said Tadaharu Yamamoto, president of Yokohama Tire Manufacturing Mississippi, LLC. “Thanks to Gov. Bryant, the great state of Mississippi, the entire community of West Point, the Golden Triangle Region and the incredible Mississippi workforce, the plant site was developed to a fully operational state-of-the-art facility in record time.”
Yamamoto told the Bradenton Health this plant is the most modern in the company’s system. He said it will take up to two years to reach annual capacity of 1 million truck and bus tires.
The company plans for three more phases beyond the 1 million-square-foot building it constructed. If all four phases are built, the company would invest a total of $1.2 billion and hire 2,000 workers.
