Ford to adjust manufacturing base in Europe but no capacity cuts in the short term, Romania safe

Carmaker Ford, which runs a factory in Romania, will adjust its manufacturing base in Europe taking into account the length of the market slump, according to company representatives, quoted by Bloomberg. However, it does not plan any short term decision on capacity cuts or re-evaluating production plants. In Europe, Ford has factories in Belgium, France, Romania, Russia, Turkey and the U.K.

In the near term, Ford will look at taking out more working days while relying on new models to spur sales, according to Stephen Odell, head of the Dearborn, Ford’s European unit. “It’s my job to be profitable at whatever level the market is at,”said Odell in an interview for Bloomberg. “We’re taking out temporary workers and cutting hours and we’ll continue to do that. In terms of capacity, we will watch it. We’ve been pretty proactive in the past and we’ll have to take a long-term view of how long the industry bumps along at 14 million units,”he went on. Ford will be cutting working days at its factories in Valencia, Spain, and Cologne, Germany. No announcement has been made for Romania, where Ford will start producing its B-Max model this year. Ford even plans to hire more staff in Romania, some 500 people, to start production of the new model. The soon-to-be-employed people will work on the B-Max model and the EcoBoost engine. The recruiting process will end in May. After the 2007 privatization of the Craiova car factory, Ford promised to hire several thousand people. The car maker will manufacture 60,0000 B-Max units this year at Craiova, and plans to build 100,000 more next year. The company had to invest EUR 675 million in technologies and producer as many as 250,000 car units by March this year, according to the 2007 privatization contract, but it recently reached a deal with the Romanian state to delay some of the investments and some penalties for a lower than initially agreed production level. editor@romania-insider.com