Japanese build houses with wood exported from Romania by Holzindustrie Schweighofer

Holzindustrie Schweighofer, one of the leading players in the Romanian wood industry, estimates exports to Japan, its main external market, will amount to around 100 million euros this year. The group has budgeted a 300 million-euro turnover for this year, up 36% on 2009. In 2010 the group bought 5,000 hectares of land in the Bicaz area.
After two transactions sealed on the wood market in the last two years, in Siret (Suceava county) and Comanesti (Bacau county), Austrian businessman Gerald Schweighofer expects overall turnover to reach 300 million euros this year, fuelled by the plants taken over. While the Comanesti plant will hire another 100, the Siret plant "has yet to match expectations," writes Business Construct magazine (www.zf.ro/businessconstruct).
Austrian Gerald Schweighofer is considered "the king of wood", after investing 310 million euros in Romania, mainly in the wood processing industry, as well as in sectors such as agriculture, green energy, and hotels.
He started investments in the Romanian market ten years ago, but in the current period of crisis he went public on several occasions, criticising the political instability and of the legislative changes that brought losses to his renewable energy business.