Continental Tyre South Africa (CTSA) has announced the discontinuation of the production of underground mining and agricultural tyres in South Africa. This decision affects approximately 170 employees within its manufacturing and sales organisation.

The decision was made to review the local Port Elizabeth manufacturing operations as a result of the restructuring of the global Commercial Specialty Tyre Business. This critical evaluation has resulted in the principal decision to close the Underground Mining Tyres & Agricultural Tyres production and to relocate this production outside of South Africa.

An outcome in terms of the affected employees has not yet been made and will be dealt with through the Section 189(A) consultative process. The company will be consulting extensively with all the staff and employee representatives. On 7 June the affected employees were informed of the situation and how it could impact them. Employees were advised of the reasons, timescales as well aands the next steps.

“All efforts will be made to minimise the impact and to reduce the number of employees affected. During the consultation period and any future ramp down, we will maintain key staff in order to complete our customer obligations”, says Shaun Uys, Managing Director CTSA.

He further added that “Continental Tyre South Africa has been part of the South African landscape for over 70 years and we are committed to continuing and growing our business through our Passenger and Light Truck divisions (PLT)”.

The PLT segment is by far the company’s biggest offering and provides tyres to all car manufacturers in South Africa as well as servicing the replacement market.

“The PLT segment underpinned by our strong OE fitment will continue our growth strategy into Africa. As a part of this we will continue to source locally from the Port Elizabeth plant” said Uys. “Having a facility on the African continent strengthens our agility and ability to service our customers.”