Coindu seeking 25m-euro factory in Arad

The Portuguese company Coindu, which specialises in genuine and imitation leather covers for use in cars and planes intends to build a factory in the Curtici-Arad free-trade zone, with the total investment set at 25 million euros.

The company management has already submitted a letter of intent to the Arad County Council requesting to be granted four hectares of land in the free-trade zone, enabling it to build a factory there. The investment will create about one thousand jobs, especially for women.

The County Council and the Administration of the Curtici-Arad Free-trade Zone have announced a tender for the respective plot of land, which should take place on September 3.

“We hope September 3 will also be the date when the contract is signed. The chances are very high. It would be the largest investment on the Curtici platform,” stated Gheorghe Seculici, Arad County Council chairman.

The Curtici-Arad Free-trade Zone has attracted nearly 100 million euros in investments so far.

Coindu has two factories in Portugal and its clients are producers of vehicles and aircrafts in Austria, Sweden and France. The company sold 100 million euros worth of goods last year.

This new entry into market once again confirms that Romania has become a kind of “Silicon Valley” for automotive component manufacturers.

Romania’s cheap, highly skilled work-force has attracted a significant number of manufacturers of automotive parts and components from Western Europe in recent years. Almost 20 European, American and Japanese companies have invested over 500 million euros in opening production facilities in Romania so far. They include Ina Sheffler, Lisa Draxlemaier, Valeo, BOS Automotive, Sumitomo and Leoni.

This year promises to be the richest in terms of such investments, largely because of the start of production on the new Dacia model, Logan.

Early this year, Germany’s Draxlemaier inaugurated a new automotive wiring factory in Hunedoara, following a 15 million euro-investment. The Japanese Yazaki Group’s automotive wiring factory (a 10 million-dollar investment) began operations in Ploiesti, with the city also hosting a factory belonging to the US-based Johnson Control (a 16.5 million-dollar investment), producing textile materials for the automotive industry. transilvania@zf.ro