“We will not be hiring this year, but have about EUR3 million to EUR4 million budgeted for equipment investments,” said Fulger Popescu, chief operating officer of Astra Rail Industries.
The owner of Astra Rail Industries is German investor Thomas Manns, who two years ago acquired the Astra Vagoane Arad, Romvag Caracal and Meva Turnu Severin plants that went insolvent in 2010. The three plants had 2,600 employees in 2014, after the new owner hired 1,000 people.
Astra Rail Industries received orders for 1,900-2,000 railroad freight cars for this year, compared with 2,000 last year, Fulger Popescu said.
“Our business will be flat on last year,” he added. None of the railroad cars will be delivered to a Romanian customer, though. The company officials estimated EUR146 million revenue for 2014.
Craiova-based Softronic, the only manufacturer of electric locomotives and multiple units in Eastern Europe, does not see business growing this year, either. The company is selling its locomotives in Hungary and Turkey due to the lack of local demand.
“We don’t know whether the Transport Ministry will allocate money for the purchase of rolling stock and whether we can rely on that. If the Transport Ministry does not have such a budget this year, we will have only the Hungarian market again,” said Radu Zlatian, development consultant with Softronic. The company estimated EUR20 million revenue last year.
“We won’t be hiring this year, just two or three people depending on the natural personnel turnover. We estimate we will assemble the same number of locomotives as last year,” he added.
At the end of last year, Softronic and Hungary’s LAC Holding signed a letter of intent for the construction of a locomotive plant in Hungary.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)