Xella Ro, the Romanian subsidiary of German group Xella, with1.4 billion euros in annual turnover, has recently completed an AAC(Autoclaved Aerated Concrete) plant in Paulesti, Prahova county,following a 32 million-euro investment, and says it has no furtherexpansion plans on the Romanian market, either through acquisitionsor through greenfield projects, although last year the company hadplans to build another plant near Cluj.
Xella completed the plant in 12 months' time, with this being theGerman's group latest opening in the world. The original investmentwas put at 20-24 million euros, but ended up amounting to 32million euros due to conditions on the Romanian market.
"We met our initial deadlines for completing the plant, despite thefinancial crisis. Technological tests are currently carried out atthe plant, with serial production to start in a month's time. Theinvestment was more significant than we had anticipated initiallydue conditions on the Romanian market - seismic regulations andsoil structure, as well as to investments in the plant'sinfrastructure," said Marius Dragne, marketing manager of Xella forSouth-Eastern Europe (Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania).
The new plant has an installed capacity of 300,000 cubic metres andwill create 70 jobs in a first stage, as it is completelyautomated.
"This is Xella's latest AAC plant in the world, and will lead tothe creation of 70 jobs in a first stage, the commercial teamincluded. Not a lot of jobs are available because the plant isautomated, but we will boost the sales force, the marketing teamand the product management department," Dragne says.
Xella currently has an around 5-6% market share, accounted for byimports from the Hungarian and Bulgarian plants, and this yeardelivered around 220,000 cubic metres of AAC onto the market,30-35% less than last year.
"Even if we become producers, we will not suspend imports fromBulgaria and Hungary, but logistics costs will be significantlycut. For instance, the Constanta area can be catered to by theplant in Dobric, Bulgaria." Xella Ro will see a 30-35% turnoverdecline this year, to around 9 million euros.
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