Ghosn, Renault: Romania is no longer an emerging market

Carlos Ghosn, chairman and CEO of the Renault group, which owns Romanian-based Automobile Dacia, says Romania has stepped out of the emerging markets category and that the Dacia car plant in Mioveni is one of the group’s leading production bases. “It is hard to call Romania an emerging market, given that it is part of the European Union. The Romanian market still has growth potential, in fact a much bigger one in comparison to European countries. I wouldn’t call Eastern European countries emerging markets, I would say they are faster growing European markets,” said Renault’s chairman in an interview given to ZIARUL FINANCIAR. In order to preserve the company’s profitability, Renault has decided to lay off 5,000 employees in French plants; a restructuring that does not in any way affect the carmaker’s expansion plans in Romania. The owner of Automobile Dacia will increase the production capacity of the Mioveni plant from 350,000 units at present to 400,000 vehicles in 2009. This will also require new staff, which will supplement the current 13,000 people. The budget allocated by the French for Romanian operations amounts to 500 million euros in the 2008-2009 period, which will be directed both at boosting the production capacity and at developing Renault Technologie Roumanie engineering centre, the second most important such facility for the French carmaker after the one in Paris.