The company, which owns Astra Vagoane Arad, Romvag (Caracal) and Meva (Turnu Severin) plants, posted RON704 million revenue and RON54 million net profit in 2016, according to Finance Ministry data.
“We saw a decline in revenue because of a lower number of orders in 2016 and securing orders for special types of freight cars. We no longer got orders for tank cars, because the market is saturated with this type of railroad car,” the officials of the company said.
The three plants, which take up 357,000 square meters, have a production capacity of 5,000 freight cars a year, the highest in Europe, the corporate website says.
“We have been manufacturing for Western Europe only for quite a number of years already, because there is no market in Romania. We are still delivering only to Western European countries, nothing has changed here, except maybe the types of cars and quantity,” the company officials said.
Astra Rail Industries had 2,364 employees in 2017 compared with 2,470 the previous year, according to the data it supplied.
It is one of the largest rolling stock businesses in Romania, and competition includes Alstom Transport, Astra Vagoane Calatori (Valer Blidar) and Softronic Craiova. (EUR1=RON4.6399)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)