Ford bosses in Bucharest

John Fleming and Stephen Biegun, two of the US Ford Group vice-presidents at the end of last week came in Romania for a meeting with President Traian Basescu. “The meeting deals with the commercial opportunities and talks about the business environment in Romania,” the Ford Europe representatives told Ziarul Financiar. They did not care to provide further details. The visit of John Fleming, Europe”s official in charge of manufacturing and Stephen Biegun, Ford”s vice-president for International Governmental Affairs, comes shortly after the visit of President Basescu to the United States and several months after the visit to Romania paid by Ingvar Sviggum, Ford Europe”s vice-president for sales. At that time Sviggum did not rule out a possible takeover of the Daewoo plant from Craiova, specifying that Ford had excess production facilities in Europe for the time being. Sviggum, however, said he could not make any comment on Ford”s strategy for the future. Ford”s presence in Craiova would not be a first time for Romania, as the company had a facility in Bucharest, between the two world wars, whose destination was changed after WWII. Ford sold more than 4,700 cars in Romania last year and plans to attain at least 6,000 units in sales and 100 million euros in revenues. ZF