{"id":99467,"date":"2024-02-14T09:03:52","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T08:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fondazionepirelli.org\/uncategorized\/pirelli-sulle-strade-della-cina\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T15:03:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T14:03:50","slug":"pirelli-on-the-roads-of-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fondazionepirelli.org\/en\/activities\/pirelli-on-the-roads-of-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirelli on the Roads of China"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The history of <strong>Pirelli in China<\/strong> may be recent but it is certainly inspiring. And, of course, in more general terms, the company\u2019s encounters with this vast Asian country stretch far beyond the past few decades, going back more than a century.<\/p>\n<p>Because, in actual fact, Pirelli tyres were already racing on the roads of China in <strong>1907<\/strong>. This was when Prince Scipione Borghese aboard his car, the <strong><em>Itala<\/em><\/strong>, accompanied by his driver and mechanic <strong>Ettore Guizzardi<\/strong>, triumphed in an amazing contest between five crews of automotive pioneers: the Peking-Paris race. And it was Pirelli tyres that took the prince\u2019s car along the toughest roads in China and then all the way across Asia until they finally ended up in Paris. The race became the stuff of legend and the epic journey was eloquently narrated by Luigi Barzini of the <em>Corriere della Sera<\/em>, another member of the Italian crew and thus a direct witness of the endeavour.<\/p>\n<p>Just over ten years later, Pirelli was back in China, as we see in a file entitled \u201c<strong>Fiera Campionaria Cina<\/strong>\u201d which contains a series of reports, correspondence, minutes and notes that illustrate the company\u2019s participation in the China Trade Fair of 1918. The company took part in the event, sending materials and, as always, exploring new market opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward to 1971, when <strong>Alessandro Signorini<\/strong>, the general director of Industrie Pirelli, took part in an economic mission organised by the Government: this was the first official Italian mission to set foot in China since the People\u2019s Republic had been proclaimed in 1949. Signorini himself described his impressions of this encounter in an interview with <em>Fatti e Notizie<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Then, in the early 2000s, came the enormous leap that led Pirelli to start up production in China. In 2005 the company entered the Chinese market, in partnership with local entrepreneurs, as a manufacturer of cutting-edge tyres. Over the next 15 years, Pirelli expanded its production facilities with three factories, located in <strong>Yanzhou<\/strong>, <strong>Jiaozuo<\/strong>, and <strong>Shenzhou<\/strong>, creating over 4,500 jobs and setting up more than 3,700 points of sale. China emerged as an extremely dynamic global market, and in 2015 it was a Chinese group, ChemChina \u2013 which later became Sinochem \u2013 that became one of its most important investors, with the support of the Chinese Silk Road Fund. Italian technology found an ever-growing market in China, especially in the premium-tyre sector and today also in that of electric vehicles. Pirelli\u2019s commitment to environmental sustainability helped consolidate its presence in the country. Initiatives such as waste recovery, the use of low-carbon energy, and a reduction in water consumption, for example, earned the Pirelli plant in Yanzhou the prestigious<strong> Class A certification<\/strong> from the Shandong state government in 2023. The honour came in the wake of its nomination as a Green Factory in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The history of Pirelli in China may be recent but it is certainly inspiring. And, of course, in more general terms, the company\u2019s encounters with this vast Asian country stretch far beyond the past few decades, going back more than a century. Because, in actual fact, Pirelli tyres were already racing on the roads of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":99426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activities","category-stories-from-world-of-pirelli"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pirelli on the Roads of China - Fondazione Pirelli<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fondazionepirelli.org\/en\/activities\/pirelli-on-the-roads-of-china\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pirelli on the Roads of China - Fondazione Pirelli\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The history of Pirelli in China may be recent but it is certainly inspiring. 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