April 12 (SeeNews) - Japan's Nidec Corporation plans to invest 1.5 billion euro ($1.8 billion) in the construction of an automotive motors and inverters factory in Novi Sad, in northern Serbia, the Serbian President's Office said.
"In the first phase alone, Nidec will employ 480 people and their income will be significantly higher than the average in Serbia," President Aleksandar Vucic said after meeting with Nidec officials in Belgrade on Friday, as quoted in a statement by his office.
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Nidec plans to start the construction of the factory in September and complete it in the middle of 2022, the company said in a separate statement on Friday.
The factory in Novi Sad will comprise a 59,760 sq m unit for the production of automotive motors and a 36,000 sq m plant for automotive inverters. They will initially employ 1,000 employees and 200 employees, respectively.
The factory will be one of the company's largest production hubs in Europe with an annual output of between 200,000 units and 300,000 units by 2023, Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei reported in November.
"While the company's multiple businesses will be operated at the same sites to seek synergies by sharing the same production infrastructure and back-office, the new business bases will engage in, among others, supplying products to the European market, while looking to design and develop products locally in Serbia, a country abundant in people in the fields of science and engineering who are fluent in English," Nidec said in its statement.
Nidec opened an office in Novi Sad on April 8. On the same day, the company completed the execution of a strategic alliance agreement with the University of Novi Sad to actively engage in, among other activities, technological exchanges via industry-academia partnerships.
($ = 0.8419 euro)