Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. has signed an agreement with Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. Ltd., located in Hangzhou, China,
to supply Cooper Tire with 250,000-350,000 radial medium truck tires annually.
All tires will be produced according to Cooper's technical specifications under Cooper's proprietary brand names. Tire molds and other related equipment are in the process of being transferred from the Albany, Ga., facility where all of Cooper's existing RMT's are currently
produced.
Cooper's Albany facility produces nearly 25,000 tires a day, of which 1,200 are radial medium truck tires. Employment at the Albany plant is approximately 1,500.
"We have been very candid about our plans to seek additional production in Asia to supplement our U.S. capacity," said a company spokesman. "We have been traditionally known as a low-cost producer in the U.S. and we continue to use 'lean initiatives' to improve our quality and lower our costs. How much production we secure in Asia depends on the success of our efforts in the U.S. to make tires at the quality our customers demand at a cost that keeps us competitive in the marketplace."