By Mikkel Larsen, Yiling Wang, iChongqing

The last 100 years have seen immense contributions to the automobile industry. The industry developed especially well in certain cities such as Detroit, Stuttgart, and Turin. But in recent years, China is ranking 1^st in automobile production and sales, aiming to create its own new motor city: Chongqing.

The automobile production in Chongqing can be chased back as early as the 50s and the Chang’an motor company and has since then developed into a cluster with more than 10 enterprises involved. In the years 2015 and 2016, Chongqing ranked highest in China for production and sales of cars, but the market has turned slightly in recent years, with production and sales dropping by around 17% in by 2018.

The automobile industry is considered one of the six industrial pillars of Chongqing’s development and government plans hint towards further investing in this industry towards 2020 with a focus on developing more cars on new energy sources and smart technology. Chongqing is also seeing a high level of localization, with not only the car manufacturers having factories here, but also the factories that procure materials and craft components. The Chang’an motor company relies on industrial robots built by Kawasaki, also located in Chongqing, and the tires for the cars produced here, come from Hankook Tire Chongqing Factory.

One of the largest tire manufacturers in the world, Hankook currently operates 8 production bases in four countries, three of them are in China, making China the largest producer outside of South Korea where the company is headquartered. With Chongqing being a major logistics hub located at the confluence of the Yangtze River Economic Zone, The International Land-Sea Trade Corridor and the Belt and Road Initiative, Hankook Chongqing enjoys easy access to trade channels for importing raw materials and exporting their tires across China and the world.

In this episode of A New Corridor for New Energy, we are going to take a closer look at the Hankook Tire Chongqing Factory. Established in 2010, the factory has been operational for more than five years, and the Hankook Tire Chongqing Factory is now one of the largest foreign investment companies in the Liangjiang New Area and one of the top ten industries in Jiangbei District of Chongqing.