Intel, the world's largest microchip maker, has no immediate plans for an office or plant in Romania, Dave King, the company's regional director for EMEA (Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa) told Ziarul Financiar.
Overall, Romania is an inexpensive country, but not for IT equipment producers. Several weeks after one of the top Hewlett-Packard officials said in an interview to Ziarul Financiar that it was almost impossible for HP or any other IT company to come to Romania and open a hardware production capacity, Intel's officials confirmed that Romania lacks the right conditions for such an investment.
"It is not impossible, but it is highly unlikely for Intel to open a production unit in Romania. There are several factors we take into consideration before we decide to open a plant: very good experts, the right political climate, a well-developed transport infrastructure, etc.," Dave King explained. For the time being, there are 10-15,000 people directly involved in the Romanian hardware industry, the Intel official estimates. "It does not necessarily take an Intel plant for the domestic industry to work," says Dave King.
This week, Intel announced it would invest 50 million dollars to improve the production capacity of its plants in Malaysia and to open new technological centres. The area where the investments are focused, Penang, has been dubbed SE Asia's "Silicon Valley" because all the IT companies have rushed to invest there.
For the time being, Intel has established a distribution channel. Early this year, Flamingo Computers became the third-largest distributor of Intel products in Romania, and the US company wants to see how its business evolves in Romania before deciding whether to increase its presence here.
"Should growth match our efforts in the next few years, then we will expand our presence in Romania. The IT market last year posted two-digit growth (10%), mainly due to consumer credits," Dave King claims. Intel has invested about one million dollars in Romania, through the programmes operated together with the local distributors. Distribution financing is another type of investment, which amounts to some three million dollars.
The IT industry (especially the hardware segment) has been hurt lately, as IT equipment budgets were cut down, given the worldwide economic slowdown and the various international political events. According to Intel officials, wireless technology is still the winning ticket, as it provides almost permanent Internet connection. "We launched a new mobile equipment technology this year, named Centrino. We will see a boom of the entire market of microprocessors in this particular segment," Dave King says. Due to the low installation costs, wireless technology is perfect for emerging markets, the Intel official stated. iuliana.susanu@zf.ro
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