Cristian Secosan, general manager of Siemens Romania, a companythat covers markets such as energy, health and transportation,believes its business generated on the Romanian market will be 17%lower in 2009 compared with 2008, down from initialexpectations.
"At the end of 2009 nothing was budging any more. The businessdecline was not generated by Siemens's direct operations inRomania, but largely had to do with Siemens's internationalbusinesses which have sales on the Romanian market, and whoseturnover goes into our accounts. For instance, Siemens SRL fell byonly 5% last year. As of the beginning of the year, however,auctions have started for equipment acquisitions," says Secosan,who at the end of 2009 was not very optimistic about this year.
According to him, alongside energy, there are also other sectorsthat have started investments in modernising and in repairworks.
"The steel industry, the cement sector, are starting to budge.We are not talking about major investments, but rather about repairand modernisation works," Secosan says.
Siemens is present on the Romanian market via eight productioncentres that employ around 1,700 people. This summer, four of theeight production facilities, which employ 1,000, will be integratedso as to make cost cuts.
"In July we will have a single production facility after thefour plants, one in Buzias, and three in Sibiu, are broughttogether under one management. This is not a decision to beimplemented solely in Romania, but one taken at group level withbetter management in mind. For instance there were cases where oneof the plants in Sibiu made redundancies, while another wanted tohire staff. The measure will not lead to personnel cuts, but willreduce the prospective fluctuations in personnel numbers followingthe consolidation," explained Secosan.
Apart from the facilities in Sibiu and Buzias, Siemens also hasproduction facilities in Brasov, Cluj, Brazi, and Timisoara. Herethe Germans manufacture equipment that ranges from locomotive partsto software, with most products exported.
"In Timisoara, where we already have 200 employees who deliverIT services set for export, will hire another 70 staff this year.The number of companies that decide to outsource their ITdepartments is on a significant rise. This is both a trend that hasto do with cost cutting, and a logical step to take in the contextwhere this sector is becoming increasingly complex," explains theCEO of Siemens SRL.
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