Romania's Azomures Says 250 Workers' Contracts To be Suspended Not Terminated

Azomures said on Wednesday it will operate at half capacity and suspend the working contracts of 250 of its employees as of this month due to low market demand. It expects to operate at half capacity until the end of this year with an option to extend that period depending on the future economic and financial conditions.

Suspension of individual labour contracts does not mean dismissal, the company specified on Thursday. 

Considering the drastic fall in demand for fertilizers on the local and foreign markets, and if prices of fertilizers continue to fall, the company will continue to limit its operations in 2009 thus affecting a bigger number of employees, Azomures said in a statement on Thursday without elaborating on the number of workers that could be affected.

The company currently employs around 2,600.

Azomures had said earlier it plans to increase its net profit to 61.8 million lei ($20.3 million/16.2 million euro) this year, from 55.614 million in 2007. It turned to half-year net profit of some 132.2 million lei, from a loss of 6.14 million lei in the first half of 2007.

The company stock closed down 14.77% at 0.225 lei on the Bucharest Stock exchange (BVB) on Thursday.

(1 euro = 3.8057 Romanian lei)