Romanian private railway group Grampet is pondering expanding into five new European markets - Macedonia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and the Netherlands - said Gruia Stoica, the group's president and the main shareholder, Bursa reported.

Grampet started its international expansion in 2004 when it launched operations in Bulgaria.

The company's plans come after it expanded its rail freight division in the region's tenth country earlier this year with the launch of the Slovene branch Ljubljana Branch of the group's Hungarian subsidiary Train Hungary.

Grampet Group envisages EUR 26 million investments this year, Gruia Stoica disclosed in an interview with Bursa daily.

He also praised the key place given by the Government to the projects dedicated to the railway infrastructure in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

The financial estimates for 2020 indicate a slight increase of Grampet's turnover, to about EUR 285 mln (compared to EUR 281 mln in 2019), while its net profit declined to about EUR 7.3 mln (compared to EUR 11 mln in 2019).

International operations generated 22% of the group's turnover in 2020. The group's financial objective is to increase the contribution of the international division to 30% of the annual turnover in the next five years, both by consolidating the existing activities and by entering new markets, Gruia Stoica announced.

(Photo: Grampet.ro)

andrei@romania-insider.com