The Singapore-based Bridgestone Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bridgestone Corporation, yesterday announced plans to establish a new technical centre in Thailand costing 1.24 billion baht.
Located in the Bangkok suburbs, business operations are scheduled to begin in July.
The new centre is estimated to employ 100 staff by 2015.
It will carry out the functions of tyre development, tyre production technology and quality management for Asia-Pacific, previously handled in Japan.
With this shift, Bridgestone intends to establish a framework for research and development that will be able to reflect timely information from markets.
As markets in Asia continue to grow and diversify rapidly, Bridgestone believes strengthening its technical support will enable it to respond to customers' needs more quickly by raising its levels of safety, environmental awareness, quality and delivery capabilities.