Bridgestone Americas to Build Plant for Passenger and Light Truck Tires in Mexico

Tokyo (JCNN) - Bridgestone has announced the construction of the Bridgestone Group's third tire plant in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

A subsidiary of Bridgestone Americas Holding, the plant will produce passenger and light truck tires with a focus on the high performance, ultrahigh performance and large rim diameter segments. Manufacturing operation is slated to begin in July 2007. To be constructed on a 780,000m2 site, the plant will employ more than 200 people and have an output capacity of 8,000 tires a day.

Bridgestone will spend $220 million on plant construction and deploy BIRD (Bridgestone Innovative and Rational Development), the world's first production system for tires that has completely automated production in all the stages from the initial processing of materials to the final inspection of the finished tires.