Finland's Nokia, the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones, is poised to launch manufacturing operations at its new Romanian plant on February 11. The factory will assemble five mobile phones per second near Jucu, Cluj county.
Operations will begin with a single shift, which starts at 6 in the morning and involves assembling and packaging mobile phones into boxes. Employees working in the manufacturing sector will receive a wage of 800 RON (220 euros) and luncheon vouchers.
In its first phase Nokia has recruited 500 people, but will ultimately employ 3,500, according to estimates put forward by the manager of Nokia's Romanian plant, John Guerry. Born in the US, Guerry has worked with Nokia for three years. Before taking the job in Romania, the new manager ran a Nokia plant based in the United States.
The next phase of production entails the extension of the work programme to three shifts.
At the moment, Nokia is still carrying out recruitment and selection processes for personnel working in the manufacturing sector. The personnel already recruited are currently being trained and will begin activities when the plant officially opens.
Nokia operates in Romania with two units, namely the future plant in Jucu and a research unit, which is part of Enterprise Solutions.
Nokia is set to make total investments worth 60 million euros in the new plant, which will become part of Nokia Village park located near Jucu. The total level of investments earmarked for Nokia Village park, located 20 kilometres away from Cluj-Napoca, will amount to more than 200 million euros.
So far, the first four services providers that are going to operate in Nokia Village have been announced. They are expected to operate total investments worth approximately 60 million euros. The County Council offered Nokia 94 hectares of land in Tetarom 3 industrial park. According to local officials' estimates, starting in 2010 commercial operations are expected to add revenues worth approximately 110 million euros per year to the state budget. The Jucu plant will manufacture Nokia end products, namely mobile phones and network equipment, which will be exported to Asian and African markets.
Globally, Nokia has over 60,000 employees and in the first nine months of 2007 generated net income worth 5.37 billion euros and revenues worth 35.341 billion euros. The company's market value stands at 134.6 billion dollars (91.5 billion euros). Over the past year, Nokia shares have posted a 14.36% advance.
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