Shanghai Daily news

Kumho Tire Co and China FAW Group Corp will invest US$150 million to build the South Korean firm's third Chinese plant in northeastern Jilin Province to further expand in the world's fastest-growing major economy.
South Korea's second-largest tire maker will hold 90 percent of the joint venture while First Automotive Works, China's largest vehicle maker, will take the remainder.
The plant in Changchun, the provincial capital, is due to start operation with an annual output capacity of 3.15 million units of tire in the third quarter of 2007. Construction will begin in the second quarter of 2006.
"The Changchun plant is another expansion by Kumho in China," Koo Sung-Lim, an official with Kumho's capital department said in telephone interview. "Kumho expected sales in China this year to top US$270 million."
Kumho has a plant in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, with a yearly production of 12 million units and a Tianjin plant whose annual output sits at 5.3 million tons.
Kumho is among a group of foreign tire makers that are tapping China's tire market.
China produced 5.07 million autos last year, a year-on-year increase of 15.5 percent, according to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
Automakers consumed one-third of Chinese-made tires while the remainder is sold in replacement market or exported.
The world's major tire makers are gearing up to take a bigger slice of China's tire market. Global players like France-based Michelin Group and US-based Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co are increasing production in China.
China, the world's third-largest tire making country, sold 239 million pieces of tires last year, a year-on-year increase of 18.7 percent, valued at 79.35 billion yuan, up 37.6 percent from a year ago.
South Korea is now the world's fifth-largest tire making country after the United States, Japan, China and Germany.
Changchun-based FAW partners Germany's Volkswagen AG and Japan's Toyota Motor Corp to produce cars, and it's the largest truck maker in China.