Camera de Comert Elvetia - Romania / Chamber of Commerce Switzerland - Romania

Siemens expects to derive domestic turnover worth above 400m euros at the end of fiscal 2008 ending late September, given the at least 12% growth rate forecast by company representatives.

Since early 2008, the company has also taken over around 100 Petrom employees in line with a contract, worth around 10m euros, signed with the Romania's largest firm.

"Our estimates take into account the economy's growth rate, GDP, and each year we target a doubled growth rate compared with this benchmark. One advantage is the high level of competition in terms of gaining large projects worth tens of millions of euros”, says Adrian Baicusi, general manager of Siemens SRL.

Last year, the company's turnover in Romania hit 362m euros, up 24.7% against the previous year. The growth rate tripled the performances registered at a group level, which creates the premises that results in 2008 could exceed initial forecasts. In early 2008, Siemens took over part of the operations and employees of Rafiserv Petrobrazi, the maintenance firm for Petrobrazi refinery, one of Petrom's two refining facilities.

The takeover did not involve a payment on the part of Siemens, as the spin-off of this unit was an older venture of Petrom's.

Siemens now has approximately 4,000 employees. According to the latest information available, in late 2006 Rafiserv Petrobrazi had 731 employees and turnover worth 19m euros.

Siemens representatives have recently stated the contracts signed with Petrom could reach 1bn euros, given the required modernisation. There are also other companies with similar retooling needs on the domestic market.

Besides large companies' demands, other growth opportunities for Siemens domestically are related to European funds, to which large energy projects, such as electricity generation facilities that foreign investors want to establish domestically, are added.

Siemens' most important projects include the ones carried out on the segments of energy, public lighting, transportation, and health.

According to Baicusi, the value of projects is generated in equal shares both in Bucharest and in other cities.

For this year, Baicusi says there are no plans to open any new plants domestically. According to him, Siemens' Romanian plants also fulfil orders for Siemens at an international level.

Siemens Romania includes the activities of Siemens SRL, and the activities resulted from the takeover of Forte Systems, of centres for various applications held by Siemens Program System and Engineering in Brasov and Cluj-Napoca, and the part plants in Sibiu. For all of Siemens' domestic operations net income reached 6.6m euros. (Ziarul Financiar, 11/04/2008)