British American Tobacco (BAT), the biggest distributor of tobacco products in Romania in terms of sales, will invest EUR 60 million in its Ploiesti plant in 2017 to build a new production unit and upgrade the technology on site.

This is triple the expected investment for this year. The company had announced it November 2016 that it was planning to invest EUR 21 million yearly over a five-year period to develop the plant in Ploiesti.

The increase in investment is due to the production expansion after the BAT plant in Germany closed down, and the company took over Bulgartabac in Bulgaria, from where some of the production will be transferred to Romania, reports local Mediafax. It is also due to the optimization of the production of the BAT plants in Western Europe, a region including the Romanian plant.

Following the development of the Ploiesti production unit, 120 new jobs will be added by the end of this year. Of these, 90 were already filled.

The jobs cover all types of profiles, mainly technical ones, such as operators, technicians, electricians, and logistical ones. Some 700 people are employed by the Ploiesti plant, which also works with 150 contractors.

After the investments, the production is expected to increase by approximately 30%. The number of countries receiving the Ploiesti production will increase from 35 to 40.

The BAT plant in Ploiesti is currently “the second most important the group has in Europe,” the company said. Under the new production capacity, it will become one of the five most important BAT production units in the world.

editor@romania-insider.com