Saint-Gobain invests over 100m euro in Calarasi

French Saint-Gobain Group, one of the leading glass producers in the world, has decided to invest more than 100 million euros in a production facility in Calarasi, through its Saint-Gobain Vitrage division.

The decision of the group comes after more than eighteen months of probing the market and negotiating with the Romanian authorities.

“Considering the powerful growth of the markets in SE Europe, Saint-Gobain’s glass/window department has decided to consolidate its presence in the region by building a new float glass factory in Calarasi, Romania,” the company announced on Tuesday.

The group officials say the first batch of float glass (used in both the constructions and automotive industry) will be released by the production facility in Calarasi in 2006 and will be sold on both the domestic and SE European markets.

The production capacity of the new factory will reach 180,000 tonnes of glass a year (600 tonnes a day) and will primarily use Romanian raw material.

Saint-Gobain’s sales amount to more than 30bn euros a year and the net profit is worth 1bn euros. It is currently employing over 170,000 people in the 46 countries where it is running operations. The French glass and construction supplies group is already operating on the Romanian market through three companies: Saint-Gobain Sticla Romania (glass products), Saint-Gobain Isover Romania (insulations) and Saint-Gobain Weber Romania (construction supplies).

Albeit the establishment of Saint-Gobain Sticla Romania as a distribution centre on the domestic market was decided in late 1999, the management of the group was cautious in its statements on the extensive investment in Romania, waiting for an agreement to be concluded with the Romanian authorities first.

Saint-Gobain’s general manager Claude-Alain Tardy and the general manager of the Vitrage division Jacques Aschenbroich on Tuesday met with Prime Minister Adrian Nastase and Economy Minister Dan Ioan Popescu again.

“This is a very complex project and the Saint-Gobain officials were reassured they would get support from the Romanian party (…),” said Marian Saniuta, chairman of the Romanian Agency for Foreign Investments.

A similar investment had been announced by Pilkington, another powerful European group in the glass industry, which planned to invest 100 million euros in a factory in Brasov but dropped the project last year.
miruna.lebedencu@zf.ro