GETRAG Ford Transmissions Slovakia officially opened its new transmission factory in the Kechnec industrial park in eastern Slovakia on November 22.
This is the first factory of the international transmission systems producer, and it will introduce a new technology to make dual clutch transmissions, the SITA newswire wrote.
“Through the introduction of a new technology, we are entering the automatic transmission market,” said the company’s executive director, Mihir Kotecha. “We are thus opening opportunities for the significant growth of our company and our partners, meaning customers, suppliers, Kechnec, Košice Region and Slovakia.”
The Kechnec-based plant is planned to produce 110,000 gearboxes for cars and 100,000 motorcycle transmissions each year. It will hire up to 450 employees.
The plant’s production capacity is to reach 220,000 transmissions a year by 2010. By that year, Getrag Ford plans to create another 300 jobs, mainly in technical professions.
Construction on the plant started in July 2005 and cost €300 million (Sk10 billion). Production of motorcycle transmissions for BMW and Harley Davidson started in November 2006.
