Japan’s “Nidek”, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of electric motors, brings in 800 million euros, and Germany’s “Continental” has already invested 140 million.
The Japanese company “Nidek”, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of electric motors, officially announced the construction of a factory near Novi Sad a few days ago. In addition to bringing about 800 million euros, this investment in the Serbian car industry brings more modern technology compared to the previous one.
The Japanese announced on their website the construction of two factories in the city of Vojvodina. The first is being built by “Nidek Electric Motor Serbia”, a manufacturer of electric motors for cars, which will employ 1,000 people. At the same location, it is planned to build a smaller plant of the company “Nidek Elesiz Europe”, which produces electronic devices for control of steering, braking and other systems in cars. This factory should employ 200 workers. Construction is scheduled to begin in September this year, and completion in mid-2022.
At the end of March, “Nidek” issued five-year “green” bonds on the European market, which finance projects with a positive effect on the environment in the value of 500 million euros with an annual interest rate of only 0.046 percent, which confirms that it provided financing for this project.
A player from the same league, the German “Continental”, completed a similar investment in Novi Sad at the beginning of March. They opened a plant where the production of advanced electronic vehicle management systems began. They have invested 140 million euros and will employ about 500 workers.
Slobodan Acimovic, a professor at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade, states that with “Continental”, and especially with “Nidek”, we finally have high-accumulation production branches that bring big profits, because they have products that are on the rise.
– High industry technology has come to Serbia and it has excellent profit rates. These are no longer low-accumulation industries, cables and noodles. The fact is that better and more promising companies are coming, which require more intellectual and less manual work – Acimovic emphasizes.
According to him, a very important factor is that both “Continental” and “Nidek” have signed agreements with the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad to work on new development programs. “Nidek” will open a research and development center in that city. Which means that our young engineers will participate in these programs. Acimovic says that “Volkswagen” has something similar at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. The essence is that these companies give serious tasks to their scientific research centers, and they return them with new technologies.
– It can only be financed by large companies. Our young engineers will participate in something that will be on the market in 15 years – says a professor at the Faculty of Economics. Such investments of large world companies are in line with the predictions that by 2030, about 30 percent of vehicles in Europe will be electrically powered due to increasingly strict regulations on harmful gas emissions.
The Korean company “Kyugnshin Cable”, which opened a factory in Smederevska Palanka a few days ago, is also entering the race. It will produce high-tech electric vehicle battery parts for the European market. It is an investment of 20 million euros. Currently, 249 workers are employed, and by the end of 2022, there should be 700 of them.
Investors from various industries continue to come to Serbia and announce investments despite the crisis caused by the corona virus pandemic. For example, the largest chocolate producer in the world, the Swiss company “Barry Calebo” in Novi Sad, will soon start producing this delicacy. According to the latest available data, in the period January-February 2021, an inflow of foreign direct investments of 419.5 million euros was recorded.
– At this moment, it is too early to talk about the inflow for the whole year, among other things due to the fact that we still have great uncertainty when it comes to the course of the pandemic and vaccination in the world. What could be said is that we expect the net inflow of foreign investments to cover the current deficit again, which would mean a net inflow of about 2.6 billion euros in 2021 – the National Bank of Serbia states.
The central bank emphasizes that due to the pandemic, both in the world and in the surrounding countries, the inflow of foreign direct investments has decreased, with Serbia being minimally affected. After a record inflow of these investments in 2019 of 3.8 billion euros (8.3 percent of GDP), a significant inflow continued during 2020.
– According to the balance of payments for 2020, the inflow of foreign investments in Serbia amounted to three billion euros, which is a decrease of 21 percent per year, with the decrease compared to the previous year mostly related to lower reinvested earnings, which was expected during the pandemic. The net inflow amounted to 2.9 billion euros, which was, for the sixth year in a row, more than enough to cover the current balance of payments deficit (coverage was 146.5 percent) – they explain from the NBS, Politika reports.
