For years on end, Romanian constructions companies have been waiting for large projects. But there was no money. Now, money is coming, but it is European money. And since European constructors stand the highest chances of getting it, the solution for Romanian firms has become clear: closing partnerships with Europe’s “sons.”
The large projects are funded with European money granted by the European Union through programmes such as PHARE or ISPA, by the European Investment Bank and the Reconstruction and Development Bank, so that Romanian constructors were eliminated from the race because of their lack of experience in the case of high-value projects.
As the Romanian constructors have not worked on large projects for some time, the association with foreign companies has turned out to be the only way of gaining access to such projects.
Thus, Arcom SA Bucharest has recently concluded an alliance with a powerful foreign player in the field of constructions, aiming to land projects funded with European money.
“We have teamed up with Zublin AG group, one of the top four constructors on the German market, and formed a joint venture – Zacon SRL, in which Arcom holds a 49% stake. The new company was born during the July-August period. Through this association, we will also try to attract orders financed by the EU, which are generally out of the Romanian companies’ league,” Florian Florescu, economic director with Arcom Bucharest, told Ziarul Financiar.
Zublin AG has annual turnover of about 1.5 billion euros, and some 8,000 employees in Germany and worldwide. The company, which was founded in 1898 by a Swiss engineer, Eduard Zublin, operates on five continents and also in Romania, where it set up a unit in 2000, Zublin Romania SRL, which organises construction sites.
Zacon SRL, a company dedicated to civil and industrial constructions, also plans to contract orders coming from foreign firms on the Romanian market.
Moreover, through the joint venture, the two partners want to approach other markets, which for Arcom SA would mean a step towards regaining some foreign markets that it lost more than a decade ago.
“In the case of high-value contracts, let’s say worth more than 10-15 million euros, the contracting authority naturally imposes conditions of similar experience, which many Romanian firms cannot meet because the market has had no such works before,” says Dumitru Scaueru, marketing director with Hidroconstructia. According to Scaueru, the company teamed up with German firm Va Tech Wabag within a consortium that has recently won an ISPA-financed project. The project is worth about 9.7 million euros, of which 7.3 million euros account for ISPA’s contribution. adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro