Ruwel puts off investment in Cluj by one year

Although last year Ruwel announced its intention to start production in Cluj in 2007, the biggest circuit board producer in Germany now estimates its production operations will only start in mid 2008. Ruwel officials say the entire Romanian project will be restructured, following the changes that have occurred on the international electronic components markets. Ruwel was supposed to start its biggest investment in Cluj, in the production of circuit boards, estimated at 80 million euros, but the company has now announced production activities would only start mid 2008. “Shortly after our visit to Romania, during which we announced we would soon start the investment, an international group took over the shares of Ruwel AG. This investor accepts our foreign expansion strategy on the whole, but wants to rethink the details before starting the investment,” Wilfried Sehner, executive chairman of Ruwel AG’s board of directors told ZF Transilvania. He says the rethinking of the concept will take months and could be completed in the first four months of 2007. Sehner says plans of the German company include expanding the business to several locations in Romania, and, later, to Eastern Europe.