Rehau Automotive has formally laid the cornerstone of a 150 million euro exterior car components plant at Újhartyán, near Budapest in Hungary.
This 63,000-square-meter facility, the company's second plant in the country, will manufacture bumpers and other parts primarily for Daimler, which is expanding vehicle production nearby.
Bavaria, Germany-based Rehau Automotive, part of the Swiss family-run Rehau group, marked the start of plant construction at a ceremony attended by Hungary's Foreign Affairs and Trade minister Péter Szijjártó.
His government earlier concluded a strategic partnership agreement with the group providing state grant aid of almost 23 million euros towards the cost of Rehau's latest development scheme.
Hungarian subsidiary Rehau-Automotive Kft. expects the completion of its new plant, scheduled for Spring 2019, will result in the creation of 652 jobs at Újhartyán.
The new plant will be Rehau Automotive division's most modern and advanced operation, according to Markus Grundmann, chief executive officer of Rehau Automotive division.
Rehau's latest project is considered a major national investment and development by the Hungarian government.
“The government only concludes strategic partnership agreements with corporations whose activities have a perceivable effect on the Hungarian national economy. To date, [the government] has signed such agreements with 78 companies,” commented Minister Szijjártó.
Those strategic partner companies employ together a total of 175,000 people and have raised their ratio of Hungarian suppliers by 4 percent “representing tens of millions of euros increased revenues for Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises”, he added.
Rehau runs another production facility in Győr, in northwestern Hungary. Operational since 2013, this unit supplies the car manufacturer Audi and is currently expanding to match the customer's growth at its local assembly plant.
The supplier's Győr operation aims to turn out more bumper systems for Audi and is due to increase its 400-strong workforce by 75 in due course.
