Dongying Tire Industry: Policy-Driven Transformation
As a major tire production base in China, Dongying City boasts a comprehensive rubber tire production capacity of 267 million tires per year, with radial tire production accounting for one-fifth of the national total. Nine of its companies are among the world's top 75 tire manufacturers, placing its tire industry cluster among the top in the country.
Faced with challenges such as homogeneous competition and export pressure, Dongying City released a policy list in early 2026 to promote economic quality and efficiency. This list includes substantial financial support measures coupled with a mechanism for eliminating outdated production capacity, creating a closed-loop policy of "elimination and support," injecting strong momentum into the concentration and high-quality development of China's tire industry.
Targeted funding provides vital capital for industrial transformation. Dongying City has established a multi-tiered fund matrix, with a 200 million yuan government investment fund focusing on advantageous industries such as rubber tires, primarily supporting enterprises' intelligent transformation and equipment upgrades.
A 100 million yuan special subsidy is specifically designed to empower the digital transformation of SMEs, lowering the barriers to "cloud computing, data utilization, and intelligent empowerment." A 50 million yuan technology equity investment is precisely targeted at startups in cutting-edge fields such as new rubber materials and intelligent sensors.
Meanwhile, Guangrao County established a 1.2 billion yuan industrial development fund to leverage social capital and promote enterprise mergers and acquisitions. Currently, the "6+3" backbone enterprise cluster accounts for 84.2% of the city's production capacity. Hengfeng Rubber & Plastics, after mergers and acquisitions, has a comprehensive production capacity of 25 million sets, ranking among the world's top 20 tire manufacturers.
Increased R&D subsidies solidify core barriers to technological innovation. Dongying has implemented a post-investment subsidy policy for R&D, providing proportional subsidies to enterprises that meet standards and show growth. National and provincial-level innovation platforms are awarded 1 million yuan and 500,000 yuan respectively, promoting an innovation ecosystem of "investment-incentive-transformation."
Driven by these policies, Huasheng Rubber, in collaboration with Dongying Mobile, created the first 5G+AI tire quality inspection system in China, constructing 3D models of over 1,500 tire standards, improving inspection efficiency by 400%, and controlling the underreporting rate to within 2.5%. Yongsheng Rubber invested 1.51 billion yuan to build a smart factory, achieving tire molding in 33 seconds using digital twin technology, increasing production efficiency by 30%. Its new energy-specific tires won the German iF Design Award, breaking through barriers in overseas high-end markets.
Multi-dimensional support for overseas expansion helps brands break through global barriers. Addressing international trade barriers and export difficulties, Dongying effectively utilizes foreign trade development funds to support enterprises in participating in international exhibitions, obtaining international certifications, and purchasing export credit insurance. Simultaneously, it promotes the "cross-border e-commerce + industrial belt" model, planning to incubate more than 30 cross-border e-commerce enterprises.
Currently, Dongying tire companies have obtained over 200 overseas product certifications and 233 Madrid registered trademarks, with self-branded exports accounting for over 90%. Yongsheng Rubber, leveraging its advantage of over 10% green electricity usage, broke through EU carbon barriers. Its high-end brands are expanding their international influence through OEM partnerships and event sponsorships, with orders already booked until after the first quarter of 2026.
Echoing Dongying's positive support policies, Jiangsu and other regions have introduced policies to eliminate outdated production capacity, such as bias-ply tires with an annual output of less than 500,000 units, accelerating the formation of a "weeding out the inferior and supporting the superior" pattern in the industry.
Through a combination of policies, Dongying is both promoting the transformation of leading enterprises towards high-end and intelligent manufacturing and accelerating the elimination of small and scattered production capacity, thus driving industrial resources to concentrate on advantageous enterprises.
As these policies take effect, Dongying is shifting from "scale expansion" to "quality breakthrough," which will not only consolidate its own industrial cluster advantages but also provide a replicable transformation path for China's tire industry to escape low-price competition and move towards the high end of the global value chain.
