Renault: It's more profitable for us to manufacture Dacia in Morocco

Renault group believes that from an economic point of view boosting production in Romania to meet West European orders is not viable, considering Dacia’s priority in terms of sales is no longer the Romanian market, but Western Europe.

As only one in ten cars Dacia makes in Mioveni is sold in Romania, France’s Renault has chosen Morocco to build the third plant of the Romanian brand, with transportation and workforce costs being lower in the North-African state.

“What’s important when it comes to our expanding investments in Romania is the plant’s competitiveness. And when we speak of this competitiveness we are not comparing Romania against France or Germany, but against Morocco and India,” said Jacques Chauvet, board chairman at Dacia and head of the Euromed region with Renault.

Chauvet’s statements, made at the Geneva motor show, came just several hours after Dacia announced, at the same event, it would halt the production of Logan Van at Mioveni plant starting next year. The model will be replaced though in Dacia range by a bigger commercial utility vehicle, to be made starting 2012 in Morocco, at Dacia’s future plant of Tangiers.