After German, English and French have started being spoken in Timisoara. The example of German car parts producers that opened plants in Timisoara is becoming increasingly compelling for US and French investors.
DURA Automotive Systems, a US vehicle component producer, whose sales volume reaches 2.4 billion dollars, has announced it will begin construction works on a plant in Timisoara, which would produce car parts for carmakers of Central and Eastern Europe.
"Opening a production facility in Romania is part of our policy of growing together with the carmakers that are expanding their operations in Eastern Europe," stated Larry Denton, chairman and chief executive of DURA Automotive.
The customer list of Timisoara-based DURA plant might thus include companies such as Avtovaz, BMW, Dacia, Daewoo, DaimlerChrysler, Fiat, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, PSA Peugeot-Citroen, Renault-Nissan, Subaru, Suzuki, Toyota or Volkswagen, all of which conducting operations in Central and Eastern Europe.
The plant the US producer is building in Timisoara will take up almost 5,000 sqm. The construction will commence over the following period, and the production activities will begin next year. This will be, according to Dura representatives, the first of the four phases of a more complex project. The plant in Timisoara will be the fifth the US producer has opened in Central and Eastern Europe.
Also in the last part of this year, the French group Plastique Forme will start building a plant. The French group has held, since 2002, a plant producing injection moulds for the manufacturing of plastic parts, especially destined to the car industry.
The investment the French group has made so far is worth 1.6 million euros, the company's officials estimate; the new plant will take further investments standing at 1.5 million euros.
The new plant will produce injection-moulded parts, 95% of which will be exported, particularly to the new plant PSA Peugeot-Citroen owns in Trnava, Slovakia.
Last year, the first functional year for Plastique Forme plant in Timisoara, turnover amounted to more than 30 billion ROL (more than 800,000 euros).
The first international producers to have realised the high potential of Timisoara were the Germans. Thus, important names of the automotive industry and other related industries, such as Continental, Draexlmeier, Delphi Packard, began opening plants in Timisoara. Moreover, some of these companies have expanded their investment to other cities of the western region of our country.
ionut.bonoiu@zf.ro
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