Airbus"s Romanian investment in Ghimbav to "take off" in October

• Angela Merkel, Germany" chancellor, may attend the inauguration of the EUR 45 million factory

• Germans are looking to build a high-skill training center for Ghimbav specialists

One of the most important investment projects in Romania - "Airbus" - , will be completed in October, when production of the first Romanian-made Airbus parts is scheduled to begin.

In order to celebrate this moment, German chancellor, Angela Merkel, may attend the inauguration of the factory, which will produce spare parts for Airbus A 320 airplanes.

Dieter Meiners, COO of Premium Aerotec GmbH and CEO of Premium Aerotec SRL, the company which is supervising the investment in Ghimbav (Braşov), last week attended a meeting with the officials of the county of Braşov.

Also present was Hans Losinger, CEO of Premium Aerotec GmbH, who said he was "pleasantly surprised" about the support his company received in getting the project started, on a national and on a local level. "Without the support of the authorities, this project would have been very difficult to launch or may not have gotten off the ground at all", said Losinger.

Germans said that they picked the Ghimbav location in particular because it has experienced workers, which could be used effectively, allowing them to create quality products at an optimum cost.

The mayor of Braşov, George Scripcaru, stressed that the investment by Premium Aerotec is one of the most important in the area of Braşov, as well as in Romania, both from a financial and a strategic point of view. The local official said that the Mayoralty of Braşov, together with Aerotec, the German Economic Club and the Transilvania University may soon announce the creation of a high standard production training center for medium skilled workers.

In March this year, Premium Aerotec and IAR Ghimbav signed the leasehold contract by which Premium Aerotec took over from IAR Ghimbav a 60,000 sqm plot of land. The German company, which is part of the EADS group, will build the factory which will manufacture Airbus parts. The investment will amount to EUR 45 million, with another 45 million coming from its suppliers and partners.

The Airbus component factory will generate EUR 700 million in turnover in the next ten years and it will create 700 jobs..

The first stage of the project, which consists of 10,000 sqm of industrial hangars and office spaces, will be completed in 2010, and the complete investment will be inaugurated at the end of 2011. Initially, 300 jobs will be created, with 200 more people to be hired at a later stage. Together with the factory"s partners and the aeronautical industry suppliers this will create 700 jobs in total. The plant of Ghimbav will begin production of fuselage parts for 90 Airbus airplanes a year. "In the future, we will be flying on planes which are partly manufactured in Braşov", said Hans Lonsinger, who attended the signing of the contract.