Mecanica Ceahlau keeps up the fight

Mecanica Ceahlau sprung from Energia, a company set up on July 18, 1921 by university professor Socrat Lalu and some of his friends.

The company established and ran a mechanical and electro-technical workshop and a foundry for building and repairing machines and mechanical parts. The company also sold this kind of merchandise. In 1953, the company also started making agriculture machines.

Mecanica Ceahlau became a stock company in 1993, when 30% of the capital was taken over by shareholders within the mass privatisation programme.

In the summer of 1999, when privatisation ended, Mecanica Ceahlau had over 33 billion lei in debts, while share capital was a little over 22 billion lei. “After privatisation, the company underwent serious restructuring.

Between August 1999 – December 2000, arrears were eliminated, production was reorganised on a sole industrial platform, while auxiliary activities were made profitable,” says Marius Tudor Munteanu, chairman of the company’s Management Board.

The company currently employs 750 people and has three production halls, spreading over 16 hectares. Almost 70% of the output heads for the domestic market, while the rest of 30% goes to exports, to the CIS (27%), the Republic of Moldova (25%), the US (16%), Hungary (16%), Bulgaria, the Ukraine, Argentina, Poland, Sweden, Kazakhstan, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and Greece.

“In one year, the number of countries we are doing business with went up from eight to eleven. We established ties with new companies from Sweden, Argentina, Greece and Kosovo and we resumed collaboration with the Russian Federation,” says Marius Munteanu.

On the domestic market, where the company also uses the instalment and leasing systems, most of its clients are farmers and agricultural associations.