10m euro Michelin investment

Tyre maker Michelin, one of the leading international players in this industry, will begin works on a new productive capacity in Zalau this September. The investment is estimated to 10 million euros. The new facility would produce metallic cords – a basic tyre component, still imported by Michelin, Cristina Hanganu, Michelin Romania PR manager told Ziarul Financiar. “We started making metallic cords in a smaller workshop at our Silvania factory in Zalau last year, in order to meet part of the production needs. The workshop has been doing very well so far, and the products made were fully compliant with the necessary quality conditions, so that the group decided to expand this activity. The new facility will be built from scratch on a piece of land about one kilometre away from the factory,” Hanganu specified. “The new facility, which is designed to fully cover the metallic cord needs of the two factories in Romania (Silvania Zalau and Victoria Floresti) will become operational in September 2004. We estimate to have 300 people employed for this activity in three years, over twice more than we have now (130),” the Michelin representative said. ZF