Cristian Secosan, general manager of Siemens Romania, a company that covers markets such as energy, health and transportation, believes its business generated on the Romanian market will be 17% lower in 2009 compared with 2008, down from initial expectations.
"At the end of 2009 nothing was budging any more. The business decline was not generated by Siemens's direct operations in Romania, but largely had to do with Siemens's international businesses which have sales on the Romanian market, and whose turnover goes into our accounts. For instance, Siemens SRL fell by only 5% last year. As of the beginning of the year, however, auctions have started for equipment acquisitions," says Secosan, who at the end of 2009 was not very optimistic about this year.
According to him, alongside energy, there are also other sectors that have started investments in modernising and in repair works.
"The steel industry, the cement sector, are starting to budge. We are not talking about major investments, but rather about repair and modernisation works," Secosan says.
Siemens is present on the Romanian market via eight production centres that employ around 1,700 people. This summer, four of the eight production facilities, which employ 1,000, will be integrated so as to make cost cuts.
"In July we will have a single production facility after the four plants, one in Buzias, and three in Sibiu, are brought together under one management. This is not a decision to be implemented solely in Romania, but one taken at group level with better management in mind. For instance there were cases where one of the plants in Sibiu made redundancies, while another wanted to hire staff. The measure will not lead to personnel cuts, but will reduce the prospective fluctuations in personnel numbers following the consolidation," explained Secosan.
Apart from the facilities i
