WEST POINT, Miss. – Yokohama Rubber Co. is set to dedicate a $300 million Mississippi tire plant as its platform to compete for a bigger slice of the North American tire market.
Company and state leaders are to gather Monday to dedicate the West Point plant, which has already hired 260 people out of the 500 promised. The plant is expected to help counter economic doldrums plaguing this northeast Mississippi town of 11,000 for nearly a decade.
Tadaharu Yamamoto, president of the Japanese tire company’s Mississippi branch, says it’ll take up to two years to reach the plant’s annual capacity of 1 million truck and bus tires.
Yokohama has plans for three more phases. If all four are built, the company could eventually invest a total of $1.2 billion and hire 2,000 workers total.
