EADS, through Premium Aerotec, has so far invested EUR40 million in Ghimbav and has recently completed the first investment phase of a program worth EUR90 million. The group will also get state aid worth EUR19 million.
“The Brasov investment is a milestone not only for EADS, but also for Romania. We’re focusing on the workforce now so that we should shortly reach 1,000 employees in Romania,” said Louis Gallois, EADS’s chief executive officer.
Gallois was present on Tuesday in Brasov at the official opening of the plant. This is his second time in Romania, more than ten years after his first visit. “I was impressed by the progress Romania has made over the past ten years,” said Gallois, who runs a group with EUR45 billion in turnover and 121,000 employees.
EADS is present in Romania through Premium Aerotec of Ghimbav and through Eurcopter Romania, a joint venture in which the state holds a 49% stake.
Premium Aerotec currently has 260 employees and after the finalization of the next investment stages, scheduled for the end of 2013, its management expects the number to climb to 550.
“EADS’s Brasov plant will export the entire production and will serve the entire south-eastern area of Europe,” Gallois also said. The parts manufactured at this plant will be installed on Airbus aircraft that will fly across the world.
In the first six months, the new plant of Premium Eurotec produced 240,000 parts for Airbus aircraft and the company’s management estimates production will reach 1.3 million parts per annum after investment projects are completed.
The company’s representatives did not provide any information on the value of Romanian sales, but according to previous estimates the plant would generate sales of EUR40 million in the first year.
EADS’s Brasov investments are the most important in recent years and come at a time when the Romanian aeronautic industry has been deeply hurt by the global crisis.