March 27 (SeeNews) - German packaging machinery manufacturer Multivac said on Monday that it is opening an expanded production facility in Bozhurishte industrial zone near Sofia, for a total investment of around 6 million euro ($6.5 million), after receiving in February clearance to start operations at the site.
The expansion of Multivac Bulgaria Production consists in the addition of new production facilities, assembly areas and offices adding a total of about 5,600 sq m, including a production base of over 4,000 sq m, the company said in a press release.
Multivac invested 5 million euro in the building stock and 1 million euro in initial equipment upgrades, with construction having taken place over the past 12 months. The German company's overall investment in Bulgaria so far amounts to over 25 million euro for an overall plant area of 12,500 sq m.
The new site will create around a hundred jobs.
"The facility in Bozhurishte, which was put in operation in 2018 and supplies various companies of the Multivac Group, developed in recent years into a strategically important part of our global manufacturing network. The local wholesale company, with its own showroom and customer and staff training centre, is also located here, and that means we now have about 220 local staff," Multivac Group president and CEO, Christian Traumann, said.
Multivac Bulgaria Production is part of the group's worldwide network, which is made up of another 12 sites in Germany, Austria, Spain, Brazil, China, Japan and the US.
The new building will enable the Bulgarian manufacturing unit to significantly increase on-site output capacity for sheet processing, as well as electrical and mechanical assembly, Multivac Bulgaria Production managing director Christian Lau noted.
The family-owned German company opened its plant in Bozhurishte in 2018. It produces machines and equipment for slicing, portioning, dough processing, packaging and labelling, its website shows.
($ = 0.9280 euro)