Apollo Tyres to invest 475 million euros for Europe's largest greenfield plant

Indian tyre manufacturing major Apollo Tyres is making a huge capital investment of of 475 million euros to set up Europe's largest greenfield plant in Hungary. The plant is expected to produce nearly 62 lakh tyres for passenger cars and heavy commercial vehicles per annum.

The facility at Gyongyoshalasz, located less than 100 km from here, will start production early next year and it willproduce tyres to cater to the entire European market. "Construction of Apollo Tyres' first European greenfieldplant at Gyongyoshalasz has started on April 10, 2015 and wewill start production in early 2017.

It will be Europe'slargest greenfield tyres plant," Apollo Tyres (Hungary) KFT, Head - Project Controller, Amitabh Arya told PTI. The Hungarian facility will be a state-of-the-art plantand once completed it will have a capacity to produce 5.5million (55 lakh) passenger car and light truck (PCLT) tyresand 6,75,000 heavy commercial vehicle (HCV) tyres per annum.

The total investment in the facility will be 475 millioneuro (about Rs 3,460 crore) and the Hungarian government wasvery excited about the investment from a leading Indian company.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, at a joint press conference with visiting Indian Vice President Hamid Ansarilast week, had specifically mentioned about the Apollo Tyresplant saying it was one of the largest foreign investments in Hungary.

The Gyongyoshalasz facility will produce both Apollo and Vredestein branded tyres and will cater to the entire Europeanmarket. Apollo Vredestein B.V. is part of Apollo Tyres Ltd and hasits head office in Enschede, the Netherlands. It designs,manufactures and sells high-quality tyres under the Apollo andVredestein brands in Europe and North America.

Onkar S Kanwar headed Apollo Tyres Ltd, with its corporate headquarters in Gurgaon, is in the business of manufacture andsale of tyres since its inception in 1972. The company has grown manifold, establishing its footprintacross the globe.

It has manufacturing units in India and TheNetherlands. The company markets its products under its two globalbrands - Apollo and Vredestein, and its products are availablein over 100 countries through a vast network of branded,exclusive and multi-product outlets.

At the end of its financial year on March 31, 2016, ApolloTyres had clocked a turnover of USD 1.8 billion, backed by aglobal workforce of around 16,000 employees.