Spanish producer of hydraulic components Grupo Industrial Roquet will build a greenfield production plant in Romania, near Ploiesti, with the help of a loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The EBRD will give a EUR 5 million loan to Grupo Industrial Roquet, to co-finance the development of their greenfield plant.

Grupo Industrial Roquet produces gear pumps, hydraulic cylinders, control valves and various components for hydraulic applications, serving industries like construction and agricultural mobile equipment, transport, logistic elements and machine tools in four factories in Spain.

The group decided to expand with a new factory in Romania to meet rising demand for its products. Construction of the greenfield plant is scheduled to start in April 2014 and production is planned to begin in 2015.

In the Romanian factory, Roquet will produce larger diameter cylinders used in capital goods applications, mainly agriculture and constructions machinery.

“For our company, founded in the 1950’s, this is a giant step to gradually becoming a global player. When we studied various sites for investment we realised that Romania offered many of advantages, among them a very positive business atmosphere. The EBRD’s strong support was the decisive factor for our decision to set up our new factory, which also is our first abroad, in Romania. We are confident that from this industrial base near Ploiesti we will be very successful in expanding our product range and market penetration,” said Cipriano Gomez, CEO Roquet Hydraulics.

EBRD will provide the loan under the Local Enterprise Facility, a EUR 400 million facility for investments in enterprises in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Turkey, as well as countries in the southern and eastern Mediterranean region (Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia).

Since the start of its operations in the country the EBRD has invested around EUR 6.64 billion across over 356 projects in Romania and has further mobilized over EUR 14 billion for these ventures from other sources of financing, according to the bank.

editor@romania-insider.com