Bridgestone Corp. will invest $36.7 million in the coming 12 to 18 months to add capacity for radial truck and bus tires at its Bridgestone India Pvt. Ltd. plant in Kheda, India, to meet increasing domestic demand. The new production should come on stream in the first half of 2011, Bridgestone said, gearing up to full capacity of 400 units a day by the second half of 2012. The project will create about 190 jobs at the 970-employee factory.

The project will require expanding the size of the plant, which stands at 7.1 million square feet.

The 12-year-old Kheda plant already is in the midst of a $56.3 million project to boost car and light truck tire capacity 40 percent to 15,000 tires a day by mid-2010.

Demand for radial truck and bus tires is expected to grow because of the expansion of the expressways and other road infrastructure, Bridgestone said, which reflects India’s economic growth and the growth of higher-performance trucks.

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