Yokohama receives awards for Chinese tire plant

RubberWorld reports that the Yokohama Rubber Co. has announced that Hangzhou Yokohama Tire Co., Ltd., its tire production base in China, received grants-in-aid totaling 13.47 million yuan (¥205 million or US$2.2 million) for the period from December 2012 to March 2013 from Hangzhou City and the Hangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone (HEDA). The grants are in recognition of the company’s economic and environmental activities, and represent the largest amount awarded to a single company (not a group of companies) among about 340 located in the HEDA. The grants reflect several distint achievements, including the fact that Hangzhou Yokohama’s capacity expansion plans have been completed faster than planned, while the plant’s small-scale production method will enable flexible capital investment according to specific demand. On the environmental side, the company installed a system to purify exhaust from the mixing/vulcanization process, built a sewage treatment facility, implemented energy conservation efforts to reduce energy consumption in FY2012 was reduced by more than 15% from the previous year, and planted some 24,000 trees from 2007 through the end of 2012.