Romet mainly operates in the environmental and power industries and in agriculture, and the significant increase in the group’s turnover over the last few years was fuelled by the high amounts of money pumped into Romania via EU funded water and sewer network projects, which mainly went to local authorities.
Romet benefited from this situation precisely because of its position on the market of the equipment used by the water industry in Romania. Among the products it manufactures are water treatment equipment and irrigation systems.
Constantin Toma’s group, which includes about 22 companies with annual sales of EUR300 million, has witnessed significant growth over the last few years because of the agricultural operations.
Even though Romet is known for its leading position on the industrial equipment market in Romania, agriculture is becoming increasingly more important for its business.
Toma owns the largest agricultural company in the Buzau county, Agroglobal, which farms several thousand hectares of land on which it grows grain. Agroglobal posted about EUR40 million turnover last year, after a 22% increase in the previous year. Its sales in 2007 stood at merely 32.2 million lei (EUR7.4 million).
Romet owner says that 2011, being the good farming year that it was, had a positive impact on the group’s sales of irrigation equipment. This year, however, which looks like it will be a droughty one, will be even better for sales of such products.
He expects growth to also be helped by EU-funded projects.
As a producer of equipment for water industry, Romet hopes the government will get the EUR4 to EUR6 billion from the European Union as promised, so that the group could get more contracts to supply various products for environmental industry and agriculture.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)