"We are close to completing the investment and we intend to begin production in April. We are now installing equipment and hiring the last of the staff," said Mircea Puscasu, administrator of owning company Ecolor SRL.
He added that 3 million euros had been invested thus far, with the total value of the project being 4 million euros.
The factory will open with around 50 employees and will later expand to 150.
The company bought more than 10,000 square meters of land, which was more than it needed, giving it the option to invest in expansion if necessary.
The new furniture factory, located in a town 20 kilometres away from Cluj Napoca, will make chests of drawers, bedside tables and "country" style bed rooms, with the entire output delivered to Ikea stores.
Gyllenvaans entered the Romanian market on the recommendation of Ikea, which has a sales office in Romania through which it buys furniture from some 40 domestic suppliers that it then ships to its stores. Ikea's manufacturing division, Swedwood, already owns a furniture factory in Siret.
The abundance of raw materials and relatively low labour costs are convincing more and more foreign groups to do their production in Romania. Puscasu says that the ROL appreciation of the last few months has incurred the company some losses, though not on a serious scale.
"We lost about 300 million ROL due to the appreciation, but I imagine this is less than what exporting companies have lost. Some companies are losing this amount of money on a daily basis," Puscasu explained.
Although no contract has been concluded yet, the raw material supplier could be Kronospan Sebes. "Austrian company Egger would also be an option, though when you add the transport costs, the price comes out higher than Kronospan's," Puscasu added. georgiana.stavarache@zf.ro
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