
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 4, 1994                   TAG: 9405050017
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

YOKOHAMA WINS STATE GRANT TO HELP EXPAND SALEM PLANT

Sometimes, keeping jobs is more important than recruiting new industries, making Yokohama Tire Corp.'s acceptance Tuesday of a $135,000 state grant to help its expansion in Salem significant for several reasons:

Yokohama's $50 million expansion of the Salem plant - Yokohama's only tire-making facility in the United States - means more $17.50-an-hour factory jobs in the Roanoke Valley. And it means the 942 jobs already at the Salem plant are secure.

More important, Salem Mayor Jim Taliaferro pointed out, is the difference between Yokohama's ownership and what could have been.

"A few years ago, we were sitting around here, and we were talking about employee buyouts at Mohawk Tire and the future," Taliaferro said, "and certainly it's very bright right now at Yokohama Tire Company."

Gov. George Allen flew to Salem by helicopter to present the check to Eika Yamagata, president and chief executive officer of Fullerton, Calif.-based Yokohama.

"Do you make truck tires, by any chance?" Allen joked. "We could put them on the Volvo trucks down the road." Allen was referring to Volvo-GM Heavy Truck Corp.'s announcement last week of a $200 million expansion at its Pulaski County plant.

Allen admitted the $135,000 check from the Governor's Opportunity Fund was not significant compared with Yokohama's $120 million investment in the Salem plant over the past five years. The state grant will be used to prepare the site for expansion.

"This is not an ideal site - it's a completely legitimate use," Allen said of the opportunity fund to prepare the sloping land for construction. "It doesn't win the deal, but it helps cement it."

The expansion will increase Yokohama's capacity at the Salem facility to 6 million tires annually. Yokohama Tire is the U.S. subsidiary of Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. of Tokyo. It has created more than 300 jobs at the Salem plant since it bought out Mohawk Tire in 1989.

Yamagata said Yokohama's plans in Salem call for eventual production of 10 million tires annually.

"This plant is very, very important to us, as well as to our parent company," he said. "Our parent company will invest more money in this plant in the future."

by CNB