Romanian plants make millions of euros from products manufactured for IKEA

Sweden's IKEA has been buying furniture from Romanian companies for decades, even before the fall of the communist regime, and this is why it is not surprising that almost 10% of the items of the Băneasa store are "made in Romania".

The situation was the more favourable for suppliers as in 2008 IKEA closed the domestic plant it owned, and subsequently sold it to Austria's Holzindustrie Schweighofer. The Siret facility, operated through Swedwood, delivered the products for stores around the world.

At present, the number of companies from which IKEA buys furniture and the total value is not known. The most recent data are from 2009, when the company had 40 suppliers and the level of acquisitions was put by ZF at around 250m euros.

From the information ZF centralised from companies, the biggest suppliers are probably Sortilemn, Ecolor, Gilmet, Apulum, Cesiro, Plimob and Princo.