Moser Baer in talks for Romanian presence

The Indian company Moser Baer, the third largest manufacturer of CDs and DVDs in the world, is negotiating with the authorities over a greenfield investment in Romania, whose value stands at 150-220 million dollars.

“Talks with the Indian investors have been going on for almost a year now, but have reached an advanced stage,” government sources told Ziarul Financiar. They added the negotiations had reached a very sensitive point for the authorities: incentives.

“As with the 215 million-euro investment Renault will make in a gearbox manufacturing facility, the Indian investor requested the maximum number of incentives. The representatives of several institutions, the Foreign Investment Agency, the Competition Council, the Environment Ministry, the Economy Ministry and the Finance Ministry will devise a state aid plan to present to the Moser Baer officials,” the quoted sources added.

The Indian company intends to build a factory to manufacture CDs and DVDs, which is set to create 1,500 – 2,000 jobs.

To make its investment, the company needs more than 12 hectares of land. Moser Baer was initially one of the companies looking to get the land left unoccupied inside the Tetarom Industrial Park in Cluj, after French Montupet decided to drop its investment plans for Romania, preferring to go to Bulgaria instead.

Meanwhile, the company”s officials have inspected other sites and have even met with private investors from Brasov. “It seems they liked the Industrial Park in Ploiesti best, because they have all the utilities available there, and are most likely to settle for this location,” the quoted sources added.

They specified a decision about the land would be made this month, which would allow the Indian investor to begin works early next year.

Moser Baer is based in New Delhi and was founded in 1983.

It has five factories and 4,500 employees all over the world. The 2004 fiscal year, ended March 31, 2005, indicated net sales of 12.8bn dollars and 1.02bn dollars in operating income. Net income stood at 607 million dollars.

miruna.lebedencu@zf.ro