More than a quarter of the over 350 employees working on the site of the Sibiu airport are foreigners - Poles, Hungarians, and particularly Germans, contrary to the trend of the constructions market, where a large part of Romanian workers emigrate to work in the West for higher salaries.

The foreign employees are working as engineers, foremen and in the consulting team, however, they also hold less skilled positions, as is the case with around 30 mechanics employed by German builder Max Bogl, the general contractor for the civil engineering works.

"The builder's motivation (in employing foreign workers) comes from the high quality required for such projects. Technology is specific to the airport, similar to highway construction, but must be of a much higher quality. All the individuals working on this airport are experienced in this type of work," states Gudo Retter, the manager of Retter Project Management, the project administrator.

Retter is also the manager of the Esplanada project in Bucharest, which is handled by the TriGranit real estate development company in a public-private partnership involving Bucharest City Hall and the Romanian government.

The consulting team for this project, which is worth around 65 million euros in total, consists of 39 people, 17 of whom are German citizens.

Retter, 34, was born near Sibiu. In 1990, he moved to D?sseldorf with part of his family. He studied civil engineering and economics in Germany and returned to Romania for the Sibiu project at the end of 2004.

"In terms of the size of this project, Sibiu airport is getting a complete overhaul. Everything that is old, such as the runway, terminal or platform is being newly constructed. The deadline is June 15, 2007 for civil constructions and March 3, 2008 for civil engineering, but we estimate we will finish earlier, by December 22, 2007," spe