South Korea’s Nexen Tire Corp. will start mass production at its new plant in the Czech Republic that will place it among the world’s top 10 tire making group with an annual output of more than 50 million tires by 2025.

Nexen Tire is expected to hold the official opening ceremony of its new tire plant in Zatec, the Czech Republic on Aug. 28, according to industry sources on Tuesday. The Zatec plant originally set to open early last year but had to push back the plan due to the slowdown in auto demand in Europe and a delay in obtaining permission from the Czech government. The plant embarked test production in April.

Built on 650,000 square meters of land at the Triangle industrial zone in Zatec, 70 kilometers northwest of the capital city of Prague, the new plant is expected to churn out 16,000 tires a day, or 3 million tires a year once it starts production in full gear.

The company also plans to expand the factory’s annual production capacity to 11 million units by 2022 and 12 million units by the following year.

The expansion would help to push Nexen Tire, currently at 20th with 40 million annual capacity, to join the world’s top 10 tire makers by 2025 with an annual capacity of 52 million tires.

The company is expected to spend total 1.2 trillion won ($1.0 billion) for building and expanding the Zatec plant, located near manufacturing plants of about 30 global finished automakers.

Nexon Tire currently supplies tires to Volkswagen, Porsche, Fiat, Skoda as well as Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia in Europe. It expects the new plant to help it secure more orders from luxury car makers such as Mercedes-Benz and Audi. It is reported to have already won original equipment contracts from luxury carmakers in Europe.

By Lee Jong-hyuk and Cho Jeehyun

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