Two major manufacturers announced over €100 million in new investments in Hungary last Thursday.
AB Electrolux of Sweden, the world’s largest producer of household appliances, laid the foundation stone of a new plant in Nyregyh??za. Finland’s Nokia revealed plans to significantly increase capacity at its mobile phone factory in Kom??rom, northern Hungary.
Nokia will invest €50 million in the expansion. It has already invested €100 million in production and warehousing facilities at the Kom??rom site. Nokia said the new building will measure some 20,000 square meters, roughly the same size as the existing factory. This led local media to speculate that the investment will double production, meaning Nokia Kom??rom Kft might overtake Audi Hung??ria Motor Kft as the nation’s top exporter.
However, when announcing the investment, Nokia Kom??rom CEO Jyrki Jalasto declined to specify the Kom??rom plant’s current or planned production capacity. Jalasto said it is already one of Nokia’s largest plants, and has been delivering to European, Middle Eastern and African markets, where demand for mobile phones has been rising rapidly.
Nokia will add another 500 employees to the current 2,000 in Kom??rom in the spring, while manufacturing at the new site is scheduled to start in September 2004, Jalasto said. Nokia will recruit workers from Slovakia if not enough Hungarians apply, he added.
As for the Electrolux investment, the company’s management said the new refrigerator factory represents an investment of ??65 million and will create 600 jobs.
Electrolux Lehel Kft, the local unit of the Electrolux Group, expects that the new 48,000 square-meter plant will begin production in a year. By 2007, it is expected to have annual capacity of 560,000 combi-bottom fridge-freezer units. Electrolux makes brands such as AEG, Zanussi and Frigidaire.
The new production site adds to the group’s existing industrial base in J??szber©ny, central-east Hungary, where the company already produces four million refrigerators, chest-freezers and vacuum cleaners per year. When the new factory is completed, Hungary will be Electrolux’s largest production center for refrigerators and freezers in Europe.
The company said most of the appliances will be exported to EU member states and Central and Eastern Europe.
At the ceremonial laying of the foundation stone, Hans Str¥berg, president and CEO of AB Electrolux, said this first step towards a completely new factory shows how seriously Electrolux takes its operations in Hungary.
“Since we acquired Lehel in 1991, we have made large investments in this country, and the outcome has been very satisfying,” he said.
From bbj.hu