Schneider Electric to invest 60 mln euro in raising factory capacity in Bulgaria

The facility's overall area will be increased by 3,000 square metres, with the company enhancing production capacity and installing three new production lines for circuit breakers, Schneider Electric said in a statement.

The move comes in response to higher demand and larger volume of orders recorded by the Bulgarian unit, which has followed a significant upward trend in recent years, the French group explained.

Currently, Schneider Electric's factory in Plovdiv produces over 40 million automatic circuit breakers per year.

"Just two years after receiving the international certificate for Smart Factory, we managed to book a significant increase in our automated systems, as already over 70% of the processes in the plant are automated. With the expansion and implementation of the new three production lines, this percentage will continue to grow," Maria Topchiyska, the executive director of the Plovdiv facility, said.

The factory expansion will allow the creation of more than 100 jobs at Schneider Electric Bulgaria by mid-2023, which will bring the company's total local headcount to over 1,000.

Schneider Electric, which has been present in Bulgaria since 1990, formed its local subsidiary in 1998. The company opened the Plovdiv facility in 2007, following an investment in the amount of 22 million euro.

($ = 0.9539 euro)