The foundation stone of Apollo Tyres’ modern global scale manufacturing facility was laid this week in Andhra Pradesh by Shri N. Chandrababu Naidu, chief minister of the Indian state.
The Apollo Tyres facility is located in Chinnapanduru village, Chittoor district, in the state, which borders the southeastern coast of India. Both Onkar S. Kanwar, the company’s chairman, and Neeraj Kanwar, its vice chairman, were present for the ceremony.
“I am very delighted to have Apollo Tyres, the Indian multinational, after setting its world-class facilities in Chennai and Hungary recently, now setting-up a state-of-the-art manufacturing unit in Andhra Pradesh,” said Naidu. “This will provide direct jobs to nearly 700 people and to many more indirectly, in the first phase. The employment opportunity would further get increased when the company expands in the future.”
Apollo Tyres purchased 200 acres of land from the Andhra Pradeshin government for the manufacturing facility, and would be investing $282.6 million in the first phase. The construction will start within the next six months, and the tires are expected to start rolling out from this facility in the following 24 months. The company plans to start with manufacturing of passenger vehicle tires at the facility, due to growing demand and will later expand other product categories.
“While planning … we have provisioned for the future capacity expansion requirements in India for the next five years and more,” said Kanwar. “We are thankful to the Andhra Pradeshin government for excellent cooperation received from them so far, and are confident of getting the same going forward as well towards the smooth construction and management of this facility. As a responsible corporate, we would be more than happy to contribute towards Shri Chandrababu Naidu’s vision of making Andhra Pradesh a ‘sunrise’ state.”
Apollo Tyres currently has four manufacturing facilities in India; two (including a leased facility) in the rubber-producing state of Kerala, and one each in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. Outside India, the company has a manufacturing facility each in the Netherlands and Hungary.
