Bucovina Tex down by 25%

Turnover at Bucovina Tex Radauti, a leading knitwear producer in Romania, dropped 25% in 2005 due to a lack of orders from the company’s traditional clients. Bucovina Tex’s business is 98% export-based. “We had no orders from March to June and used only 30%-40% of the company’s potential. This stagnation led to a significant decline in turnover from nearly 200bn ROL in 2003 to 150bn ROL in 2004 (3.6 million euros),” explained the company’s majority shareholder and chief executive, Aurel Olarean. Bucovina Tex technical director, Paul Marin, says this is how things stand on the textile market, because contracting companies are put through a test phase in the spring in order to make a decision on which company to sign contracts with early in the summer. Bucovina Tex’s main clients for the July-September period are Hennes&Mauritz (Sweden), Neckerman (Germany) and Texeurop (France), with which they again signed contracts, allowing them to resume operations at 80-85% capacity. ZF