Pirelli & C. SpA plans to invest $300 million in Argentina by 2014 to build a new truck tire factory, and already is considering investing a further $200 million beyond that to expand capacity. 
Last year, the tiremaker announced a $100 million investment to boost annual SUV and light truck tire production to five million units per year at the company’s existing plant in Argentina.
Pirelli made the announcement following a meeting between Chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera and Argentine president Cristina Kirchner in Buenos Aires Thursday. Construction of the new truck tire plant is slated to start in early 2012.
The Argentine government will finance the project at preferential rates and has guaranteed energy supply, according to Pirelli. If Pirelli the tiremaker moves forward with the second phase of the development, capacity would be doubled to 1.4 million truck tires per year, 13% of the company’s global truck tire output.
The plan is "part of the company’s international expansion strategy which, in recent years, has seen an increasing direct industrial presence in countries like Argentina, which have fast rates of growth and competitive industrial costs," Pirelli said in a statement. Currently, the company imports all the tires it sells in the country.
Pirelli said half of the truck tire production from the new plant would go to the local market, while the other half will be exported to neighboring countries.
