QINGDAO -- Tire manufacturers in east China's Shandong Province, the country's major tire production hub, are going full throttle as overseas orders remain steady.
A tire company in Qingdao City, for example, is running out of stock and working around the clock to fill orders. Its smart factory can produce 15,000 semi-finished tires every day, but still can't keep up with demand from foreign clients.

"Exports account for 85 percent of our company's overall sales. Now our order fulfillment rate is only 60 percent. For instance, if clients place orders for 100 tires, we can only fulfill the production of 60," said Geng Cong, deputy director of the company's overseas sales center.

Data shows that in the first half of this year, China exported a total of 4.28 million tons of rubber tires, a jump of 13.7 percent compared to the same period last year. The export value recorded a year-on-year increase of 19.9 percent to roughly 75 billion yuan, or more than 10 billion U.S. dollars.