Hixih Group and Continental Group launched a joint venture project in Yanzhou, Shandong province, on Tuesday as part of their strategic cooperation in China.

The new venture aims to manufacture high-end engineered rubber products for the domestic and overseas markets, said Niu Teng, chairman of Hixih Group.

But the companies did not reveal the scale of the investment or the respective shares they would have in the joint venture.

"The cooperation is also part of Continental's commitment to its Chinese market," said Elmar Degenhart, chairman of Continental's Executive Board, adding that building a high-end R&D production base for engineered rubber products is part of its expansion plan.

Insiders said the two firms are leaders in the engineered rubber sector in Germany and China, enjoying extensive influence in the global rubber market.

Degenhart said the newly founded joint venture, equipped with the world's largest and most intelligent plate vulcanizing production line, will become the largest automatic mixing center in China's conveyor belt industry.

With its cutting-edge facilities, he said, the joint venture will have an annual conveyor belt production capacity of 40 million square meters, supplying more than 70 countries and regions in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

"Through this cooperation, we are expanding our global position in rubber and plastics technologies. In addition, the success of this cooperation will bring the joint venture a significant step closer to its strategic goal of further increasing the proportion of industrial and end-customer business in its sales," said Degenhart.

His words were echoed by Niu, who said that by realizing strategic cooperation, both sides can enhance their leading edge in the premium engineered rubber plastic products sector in order to offer better technology and products to customers.

"The aim is to further expand our market share and advance our industry and technology innovation. I hope both sides can continue searching for new areas of cooperation for mutual development," he added.