October 16 (SeeNews) - China's Hisense Group will create some 400 jobs at its new TV set plant in Slovenia's Velenje which will start operations in January, the group's Slovenian subsidiary Hisense Gorenje said.
The new plant will initially employ 330 workers, as the company will first seek to re-employ former employees of Gorenje's home appliance factories, Hisense Gorenje said in a statement on Thursday.
In addition, it will also look to hire some of the professional staff of Hisense Europe Group's companies.
"The Hisense Europe Electronic factory, which is being set up within the Gorenje production area in Velenje, in the former cooling appliances production hall, will produce two million televisions per year on four production lines in the first phase, and then, in line with market requirements, the capacity and number of lines in the next phases until 2023 will increase to the production capacity of almost 4 million TV sets per year," the statement read.
It added that the investment in the plant's technological equipment will total 7 million euro ($8.2 million).
In May, Hisense Group said it will lay off 327 workers at its four plants in Slovenia as a result of a sharp decline in orders and revenues due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The investment in a TV set manufacturing plant was announced after Hisense Luxembourg Home Appliance Holding, a member of Hisense Group, acquired a 95.42% stake in Gorenje in October 2018 by purchasing 998,417 Gorenje shares for 12 euro apiece.
"One of Hisense's major strategies is to centralise production bases in Europe, which increases operational efficiency and consequently reduces costs. Hisense Group has chosen Slovenia as the center of its European business operations, which is also the headquarter of the European part of the group, and has chosen Velenje as its main production and development location," Hisense Gorenje said on Thursday.
Gorenje has several production sites located in Slovenia, Serbia and the Czech Republic. Around two-thirds of all employees are based in Slovenia.
($=0.8549 euro)
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