9 out of the world's top 10 tire makers invest in local plant construction Sales competition of automotive tires is getting severer in China, a local office of the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) said, based on a local newspaper report. 9 out of the world's top 10 tire makers have made facility investments in local tire plants in China and are currently producing tires, making it predictable that competition for facility investments and consequent price war for sales would be further severer in the Chinese tire market. MICHELIN, which is currently expanding its facility investments in Shanghai to build the largest tire production base in China among the MICHELIN'soverseas plants all over the world, reportedly has a plan to set up about 100 retail stores in China. In addition, it willpour a total of U.S.$120 million into its Dalian Plant to increase its annual production capacity to 5.3 million tires. Bridgestone is reportedly planning to invest about 1 billion yen in the expansion of its Tianjin Plant to upgrade theannual production capacity of the plant to over 5 million tires. Such brisk tire productionin China has come mainly from the fact that the distribution rate of radial tires has already exceeded 90% in advanced countries, while China is staying at the level of 35%, showing a great potentiality that tire demand would sharply increase in the future to meet growing automotive production in China. In China, annual automotive production stayed at 4.44 million units in 2003, but the estimated output for 2005 is about 5 million units. In line with the growing number of automotive vehicles in production, demand for tires has sharply increased. China exported 35 million tires in 2002 and 45 million in 2003. China's annual output of tires posted 140 million units in 2003, andindustry officials are forecasting that China will turn out 160 million in 2005. jhyou@snmnews.com