The general manager of the Romanian branch of Nestle group, Paul Nuber, says the competitive edge of Romania in terms of low production costs, allows the company to remain competitive on both domestic and foreign markets.

"We are currently in talks to expand the list of countries importing Nestle products manufactured in Timisoara, which would push the total volume of exports of the entire production of the plant to more than 20%," stated Paul Nuber.

At present, Nestle Romania exports approximately 20% of production. The Swiss company took over the Joe wafers plant from brothers Florentin and Daniel Banu in 2000.

Export markets for Joe products and Nescafe instant coffee sachets manufactured in Timisoara include Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Lebanon and Jordan.

"It is very important for us to manufacture high-quality, low-priced products," commented Nuber. This is the reason why the plant in Timisoara constantly gets investment aimed at the modernisation of existing technologies, as well as funding to improve production capacities. "Nestle could have invested in several production facilities in Romania, but the lack of opportunities and the relative fiscal instability have so far stopped it from making such a move," added Nuber.

The company has recently expanded its product portfolio by taking over the international operations of ice cream producer, Delta Ice Cream, which owned a plant in Bucharest. Nestle intends to become one of the major players on the domestic ice cream market, where Delta Ice Cream's sales stood around 12 million euros last year, according to Nuber.

Ice cream will allow the company to balance sales registered during summer months, when sweets consumption generally shrinks.

"Sales of sweets and especially of chocolate go down during the summer, but ice cream sales will offset this decline in the f