Continental Tyre South Africa (CTSA) will spend ZAR91m (US$10.26m) on new machinery and upgrades at its Port Elizabeth plant in 2013.
Continental, Barum and Matador brand tyres are manufactured at the facility. CTSA has already spent over ZAR400m on its 3.5m tyres plant over the past four years.
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Corporate communications manager, Gishma Johnson told Engineering News, “There is increased demand for off-road vehicle tyres and, to keep up with demand, we have to invest in additional machinery.”
Apart from new machinery, the company is also spending on information technology systems to support manufacturing processes and facilitate greater production efficiencies.
Johnson said tyre production and sales had been positively affected by the steady growth in vehicle sales over the past three years and consequent growth in demand for tyre replacements. However, she said investments in the business could continue only as long as the company remained profitable.
Johnson said, “The ongoing increases in electricity and fuel prices are a major threat to our competiveness. We compete for business against several developing countries where production costs are significantly lower than in South Africa.”
