Dacia and Ford could manufacture almost 450,000 cars in 2013 if the growth of over 40% in the first four months does not slow down. Romania assembled 326,500 cars in 2012, while Italy assembled 396,000, down 15% on the previous year, with a further decline of 8% seen in the first quarter.
Romania already beat Italy in terms of car production in the first quarter, having assembled 107,000 units compared with Italy’s 101,005.
The increase in production in Romania continued last month, reaching the monthly record of 39,400 units according to the Association of Automotive Manufacturers and Importers (APIA), the highest level ever in Romania.
“Romania’s automotive industry has to reach a level of 500,000 cars assembled a year. There are two explanations as to why the results this year. The first is the almost complete refresh of Dacia’s lineup and the very high export demand, and the second is the start of Ford production in Craiova (southern Romania), which is beginning to show,“ says Constantin Stroe, chairman of ACAROM, the association of automotive manufacturers of Romania.
More than 147,000 cars were assembled in the first four months in Romania, up 42% on the year-ago period, with at least 35,000 manufactured every month.
“It is hard to provide a forecast for how things will go until the end of the year, especially when considering July and August, when people go on vacation and production therefore goes down,” Constantin Stroe said.
This trend proves once again how important the automotive industry is for Romania’s economy, considering it generated more than EUR12 billion revenue last year, almost 10% of the Gross Domestic Product. This industry employs more than 140,000 people, both in the two car plants and at the facilities of the over 800 component manufacturers.
Dacia assembled almost 117,000 cars at its plant in Mioveni, southern Romania, in the first four months of 2013, up 13% on the year-ago period, as a result of the doubling in Logan production and the 75% increase in Sandero production. Assembly of new Logan MCV launched at the General Auto Show this March should start this month, too ahead of its commercial launch in Europe in the next few weeks, Dacia officials said.
Ford assembled more than 30,000 B-Max cars in Craiova in the first four months of this year.
If production growth does not slow down, it should exceed 400,000 units by the end of the year, despite the production halt in August at both Dacia and Ford when the plants are scheduled for maintenance.
As Dacia and Ford increase production, and automotive component manufacturers like Continental, Bosch and Daimler announce new investments, more and more companies could be tempted to come in Romania, too.
“The development of the car manufacturing in Romania in the last ten years is a message of confidence in this industry. We are talks with new companies interested in direct investments in Romania right now as we speak,” Stroe said.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)