We are not just a country of cheap labor: Indjija to become the brain of Japanese tire production in Europe from 2027

For decades, Serbia has been a place of cheap labor and auxiliary facilities, but Toyo Tires is changing that paradigm. One of the leading Japanese and global tire manufacturers, which has had a tire factory in Indjija since 2022, announced that the previously announced Research and Development (R&D) Center within the factory complex would begin operating in January 2027.

The company said in a statement at the end of last year that the R&D center in Indjija would become a European hub for research and development, including material design, processing technology development and raw material evaluation. Indjija will thus become a city where new, advanced rubber compounds for the European market will no longer only be produced, but also developed and tested.

Toyo Tires also plans to move part of its R&D functions from Germany to Serbia by the end of 2026, opening a completely new area for technology development directly in Indjija.

HF Group has recently been selected as a partner for the R&D center project in Indjija. The German industrial engineering corporation, one of the world’s leading suppliers of tire technology, announced that it had been selected as the engineering and technology partner for what it described on its LinkedIn profile as “an extraordinary project with innovative engineering services and mixing technology.”

The agreement stipulates that HF Group will be responsible for the engineering, delivery and installation of the research and development production line. The facility will be equipped with modern mixing technology, which enables the development and processing of complex rubber-compound formulations, in accordance with increasingly stringent performance and sustainability requirements in the tire industry.

The new innovation center, which will cover an area of approximately 6,000 square meters, will focus on the development of rubber compounds - the most valuable and most protected segment in the tire industry, which practically represents the “heart of the tire,” and the project is given additional importance by the fact that HF Group, as they stated, has been involved in the project since the concept phase in 2024. This indicates that the Center in Indjija is being designed in accordance with the standard for strategic investments.

The timing of the project is also interesting, given that the planned commissioning in 2027 coincides with the tightening of European emissions regulations, the growth of the electric vehicle market and the growing demand for energy-efficient tires.

It should also be noted that Toyo Tire Serbia signed a cooperation agreement with the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Belgrade a few days ago, which laid the foundations for broader scientific and technical cooperation, including the improvement of research activities and the education of future engineers.

All this shows that this is one of the most strategically important investments in the Serbian automotive industry in recent years, and the key difference compared to previous projects is that it is not a mere expansion of production, but rather a relocation of part of the development.

Serbia is no longer a place of cheap labor exclusively and attracts not only factories, but also industrial knowledge.

B. P.

Toyo Tire Serbia d.o.o. Inđija

Mašinski fakultet Beograd

Toyo Tires

Toyo Tires Serbia

HF Group

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Belgrade

R and D center Inđija

advanced rubber compounds

testing

opening

partnership

Toyo Tires Innovation Center Inđija