“I am particularly interested in using the capacity to deliver in the IT&C and automotive areas. We managed to get 40 IT companies involved in a selection process for BMW. We’ve narrowed it down to four companies, which are now working in software partnerships with BMW,” said Alexandru Petrescu, minister for Business Environment, Trade and Entrepreneurship at the ZF Auto&Logistica 2017 (ZF Auto&Logistics 2017) conference on Thursday.
“It has proven to be a success model and we are now working with the VW-Audi group. We went back to all the companies that participated in the evaluation for the BMW project and are now looking at other areas, too.”
However, investors who are already in Romania are complaining about the shortage of labor and the poor quality of the education, as young people’s college education is most often not good enough.
“Besides the infrastructure problem, especially the lack of highways, the loss of employee competences is another issue the auto industry is facing. Romania is the second labor-exporting country after Syria,’ said Gabriel Sicoe, president of the association of automotive manufacturers in Romania ACAROM.
“We must develop the education system and adjust the curricula to the needs of the sector to be able to keep competences in Romania.”
The ZF Auto&Logistica 2017 conference was organized by ZF in partnership with Draexlmaier, Business Lease, MainFreight, New Kopel Group, Toyota Material Handling, UTA, Yawo Services and Robert Bosch.
The business sector, too, is calling for an improvement of the education system.
“Investors are paying more and more attention to the retention rate and the educational level of engineers. One can always train a blue collar but finding engineers to work on the manufacturing floor is hard. Labor availability is one of the top three factors companies consider,” says Diana Bordei, Head of Industrial Agency, Advisory & Transaction Services with CBRE.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)