The particleboard production plant that Austrian company Egger Osteuropa Beteiligungs intends to build in Suceava County will be 60% funded by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the international financial institution announced.
EBRD will contribute 127 million euros to this project (estimated at 210 million euros). The funding will be in form of a direct equity investment of 17 million euros and a 110 million-euro loan, of which 66 million euros are expected to be syndicated to commercial banks. The beneficiary of the project is Egger Romania SRL, majority-owned by Austrian-registered Egger Osteuropa Beteiligungs GmbH, part of the Egger Group, a leading family-owned wood panel producer.
The annual production capacity of the facility in Romania will be of 550,000 tonnes of melamine-faced particleboard and 50,000 tonnes of raw particleboard, with sales targeted mainly towards neighbouring countries and the Romanian market.
The factory will use up to 700,000 cubic metres a year of round wood. A substantial part of that will consist of low grade round wood. EBRD officials add that the new production facility will have a significant social impact, as well, thanks to the creation of 700 jobs.
The Romanian Agency for Foreign Investments has recently announced that Egger will not be the only investor in the area, followed by Schweighofer Holzindustrie. The latter intends to build a wood processing plant, a project put at 270 million euros. The company currently has a timber factory in Sebes, Alba County, wherein it invested 80 million euros. Besides the investments in the processing of wood, the company''s owner, Gerald Schweighofer announced he would allocate up to 20 million euros to the acquisition of forests in various areas across Romania. miruna.lebedencu@zf.ro The particleboard production plan
