Pirelli to Spend £150 Million on Additional Romanian Plant

Pirelli has plans to invest as much as £150 million during the course of this year to build a second factory at its Slatina tyre manufacturing site in Romania. According to Romania’s Ziarul Financiar newspaper, who quoted Enrico Malerba, chief executive of Pirelli’s Romania unit, work on the factory will commence in the summer. The completed facility will have an annual production capacity of 4 to 5 million tyres and will provide around 1,400 new jobs.

The first stage of the Slatina plant was completed in late 2006, and by the end of this year the factory will be producing its current capacity of 4.5 million high margin UHP and SUV tyres per annum. To date £110 million has been invested in this first factory. Pirelli also operates an 80:20 joint venture in Romania with Continental, Cord Romania. Operating since July 2005, this operation, also based in Slatina, provides steel cord for tyre production in East European markets.