ITALIAN tire maker Pirelli has no plans to move jobs to China from Europe under prospective owner China National Chemical Corp. (ChemChina), chief executive Marco Tronchetti Provera was quoted saying by a German magazine.

    ChemChina has agreed to become majority owner of the world’s fifth-largest tire maker as part of a multi-layered 7.3 billion euro (US$8 billion) deal, putting one of Italy’s oldest household names in Chinese hands.

    As part of the deal with ChemChina, Pirelli’s less-profitable truck and industrial tire business is to be folded into the Chinese company’s listed unit AEOLUS.

    “The sites in Europe won’t be affected because the business with passenger car tires is not part of the deal,” German weekly Wirtschafts Woche (WiWo) quoted Provera as saying.

    At the end of 2013, Pirelli had close to 38,000 employees, of which 3,611 were in Italy and 12,063 in the rest of Europe.

    Provera also said there were no plans to introduce a budget range below Pirelli’s namesake brand. He also said Pirelli’s managers would oversee production at ChemChina plants in China to improve quality.

    “Tires in China usually hold for no more than 20,000 kilometers. We won’t just improve the quality of the products but also introduce services, like we did in Brazil and Turkey,” he said.

    (SD-Agencies)