Renault-owned Automobile Dacia (automotive), Rompetrol Rafinare (oil), Petrotel Lukoil (oil), Ford (automotive) and ArcelorMittal were the largest processing industry companies in Romania in 2014, according to Trade Registry data.
Five automotive component plants (three Continental facilities, a Michelin and an Autoliv facility) are the rest of the top ten processing industry companies.
The ten posted more than RON58 billion revenue last year or 20% of the revenue of Romania’s processing industry.
“Automobile Dacia has been a locomotive for the Romanian auto industry but that was because of the more than EUR2.3 billion investments and the increase in production capacity to 350,000 cars a year,” explained Constantin Stroe, member of the board of Automobile Dacia, the largest company and also the largest exporter in the country in 2014.
“To be able to reach this capacity it turned to partners and this is how the automotive component manufacturing industry developed, which supplies products to Dacia and abroad.”
Most of the largest processing industry companies are held by foreign investors. However, some Romanian-businesses made it among the largest such companies by revenue in 2014. The highest ranked of them is Prutul SA (oil and fats), 45th, which posted RON746 million revenue in 2014.
“The business environment has been generally hostile to Romanian entrepreneurs compared with the foreign investors. We managed to develop in spite of the Government’s actions,” said Octavian Cretu, chairman and majority shareholder of Romania’s largest natural mineral water bottler, Romaqua.
“Nokia, a foreign investor that has already left Romania, made a EUR50 million investment in Cluj and got a four-lane highway and a railway line built for that. We have invested EUR220 million in Romania and have more than 2,000 employees and were ‘rewarded’ with a solid centerline on the road leading to our plant so we can’t get the trucks in. This is how differently the authorities treat Romanian investors and foreign investors.”
The RON561 million revenue in 2014 put Romaqua on the 65th place among the processing industry companies and 5th among the largest Romanian-owned manufacturing companies.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)