Italian producer Pirelli had just announced plans for a Slatina-based steel cord plant worth 40 million euros, when it decided to raise the stakes, by building one more production facility.
Pirelli, the world's fifth-largest producer of tyres, will build, in the same location, Slatina, a plant manufacturing high-performance tyres, with the investment put by the Italians at 110 million euros over the next three years.
"The new manufacturing base will be focused on High Performance Car Tyres, to serve the growing demand from East European markets, with an investment of 110 million Euro in the next three years", a representative of Pirelli's press department, told Ziarul Financiar.
Consequently, more than 90% of the production of the plant, which will employ 1,500 people, will be exported, with the rest covering the domestic market. Analysts forecast that, in the following years, the Romanian market will post significant increases, especially along the medium and superior segments of high-performance tyres.
Pirelli had announced in early October the construction of a steel cord plant in Slatina. The Italian producer had already bought a 50-hectare plot, in a deal worth more than 2 million euros.
The Pirelli project, worth 40 million euros, was being developed by Cord Slatina company, a joint-venture between the Italian group and another tyre producer, German group Continental. Pirelli owns 80% of Cord Slatina stock, with the rest accounting for Continental's participation.
"When a new investor decides to enter the Romanian market, it is a sign of trust. When such an important investor comes back and takes its investment further, though, such as the new tyre plant of Pirelli, we can already speak of the Romanian car parts industry as being a high-performing industry, with potential for competitiveness in the region, backed up by the necessary human resources, infrastructure, as well as by the business environment already existent in Romania," maintains Alexandru Popa, chairman of the Romanian Agency for Foreign Investment (ARIS), who has been involved in both investments by the Italian group.
Pirelli is not the only international tyre group carrying production activities on the Romanian market.
Continental, the world's fourth-largest player in the field, in 1999 started building a plant in which it has invested more than 120 million euros. The plant owned by the group in Timisoara will this year reach annual production capacity of 10 million tyres.
ionut.bonoiu@zf.ro
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