Uzbekistan, Tashkent, May 12 / Trend, D. Azizov /
The State Joint-Stock Company Uzkhimprom plans to sign a contract with China's CITIC, Ltd. to build a tire plant in Angren in May. The project is estimated to be worth $155 million (Tashkent region), a source in Uzkhimprom told Trend.
An agreement was signed in April 2011 concerning the basic principles of implementing the project and building the plant. The signing took place during Uzbek President Islam Karimov's visit to China.
Under the agreement, new production will begin with a design production capacity of 1.5 million motor vehicle tires, 200,000 agricultural tires and 100,000 linear meters of conveyor belt for harvesting equipment each year. Production will be located at the former site of the liquidated JSC Rezinotekhnika and is scheduled for the period of 2011-2014.
The project will be financed by a loan from the Chinese Exim Bank worth $65 million, a loan of the Reconstruction and Development Fund of Uzbekistan worth $60 million and own funds of the Uzkhimprom, worth $ 30 million.
Tires are not produced in Uzbekistan at present. Instead they are all imported - predominantly from Russia and China. It is expected that the tire-plant commission will meet the demands of the automobile plants GM Uzbekistan (Asaka, Andijan region) and the Samarkand automobile plant.
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, JSC Rezinotekhnika was the largest producer of mechanical rubber goods in Uzbekistan. The design capacity was 120,000 pieces of tires for passenger cars and trailers (profile 41/21), nine million pairs of special rubber shoes, 600,000 square meters of rubberized fabric and one thousand tons of commodity rubber a year.