The Department of Agriculture said a company from Finland expressed interest to conduct a technical and feasibility study on a rubber tire manufacturing plant.
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said the government’s program to establish the country’s first indigenous rubber tire manufacturing plant was moving closer to realization with the finalization of plans by a Finnish company to do the technical and feasibility study on the project.
Piñol said Black Donuts Engineering Inc. president and chief executive Kai Hauvala informed him his company wanted to immediately conduct the study to determine the technical and financial requirement of the tire manufacturing facility.
“Hopefully, we can have a memorandum of agreement signed by September,” said Piñol, who met with Black Donuts executives in Helsinky, Finland last week.
“The tire facility is expected to provide ready market for the rubber produce of the farmers, who will also be part owner of the corporation, which is proposed to be named Pilipinas Agila Tires,” Piñol said.
Under an agreement with the Philippine Rubber Farmers’ Association, Black Donuts will help in the construction, operations and training of farmers.
Agriculture committed to help the company by consolidating farmers’ groups and coordinating their production so they could supply the rubber requirement of the proposed tire company, which is expected to produce around four to five million tires annually.
“Black Donuts said the (Filipino-made) tire will be made of 50 percent natural rubber and 50 percent synthetic rubber,” Piñol said.
The tire manufacturing facility can employ about 800 Filipino engineers and workers once it is established sometime next year.
“If we have local demand, we can stabilize prices,” Piñol said.
Executives from Black Donuts visited some of the rubber plantations in Mindanao earlier this year to assess the capacity of the Philippines to supply the raw material requirement of the proposed tire manufacturing company.
