The Salomon Company, world's largest winter sports gear producer in terms of turnover, will transfer some of its ski production to Romania as of this year, according to Salomon Romania SRL's officials.
The move comes from a major strategy of the group to relocate the output to the countries having a low-cost workforce. Salomon has been operating on the Romanian market for more than a decade now and closed partnerships with domestic plants to outsource production of ski equipment, such as skates and ski boots. The international group operates in Romania through the Salomon Romania SRL Company based in Timisoara. "The production of skis will start this year," Salomon Romania director Virgil Pal confirmed, without revealing any further details.
Salomon Romania posted 46.9 billion ROL (1.5 million euro) turnover in 2002. The Romanian company is entirely controlled by the France-based Salomon, which is part of the Adidas - Salomon AG Group. The French company Salomon is manufacturing 12 million products every year, among which 15% are made in its own plants, while 85% are made by franchisers in Europe and Asia.
To Salomon, Romania is already the region with the largest subcontracted volume, outpacing China. The Romanian plants produce more than one third of the total subcontracted output, while China accounts for some 30%. But the group's decision to transfer the production of its main item, the skis, to Romania displeases the French employees, as shown by the French daily Le Monde.
Salomon, which was bought in 1997 by Adidas, employs 2,800 people worldwide. Salomon posted a global turnover of about 700 million euros in 2002.
georgiana.stavarache@zf.ro
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