Most of the employees work at the plant in Dambovita County (southern Romania) where the company makes refrigerators and freezers. Arctic has both manufacturing and import and distribution operations in Romania.
The company completed a EUR24 million investment (EUR10.2 million state aid and the rest self-funded) in an assembly line and inaugurated it at the end of 2013. At the time, it announced the new investment would create 572 new manufacturing jobs by 2018 when the total number of employees was supposed to go beyond 3,000. Arctic’s mid-year reports show the number of employees has already gone past that.
Arctic did not return ZF’s calls for comment on the number of employees or performance of its business in the first half by press time.
The plant in Gaesti made about 1.9 million refrigerators last year alone, 1.6 million of which exported. The plant has a total production capacity of 2.6 million units.
The plant in Gaesti is the largest in mainland Europe by production capacity and the second largest in the whole continent after Arcelik’s plant in Eskisehir. Turkey’s Arcelik has been Arctic’s owner since 2002. The group has invested more than EUR110 million since acquiring it and its latest investment was completed in 2013 and entailed boosting production capacity of the plant in Gaesti by about 25%.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)