New Korean investor heads to Žilina

THE HUB of Korean companies clustered around the carmaker Kia Motors Slovakia near Žilina may extend. Žilina Mayor Igor Choma announced that it is 90 percent sure that Sungwoo Hitech will build its plant, with the price tag of €50 million, in Žilina. The investors are still in talks with the Czech Republic.

THE HUB of Korean companies clustered around the carmaker Kia Motors Slovakia near Žilina may extend. Žilina Mayor Igor Choma announced that it is 90 percent sure that Sungwoo Hitech will build its plant, with the price tag of €50 million, in Žilina. The investors are still in talks with the Czech Republic.

“We are in intense talks with the company’s representatives,” Choma said, as quoted by the TASR newswire. “The city lends full support to the project, which should be located on the former site of Doprastav’s plant.”

The Economy Ministry also became involved when it offered cooperation as well as some benefits.
At the beginning the plan should create 300 jobs, while the figure should rise to as many as 800 jobs within five years, Choma told the press on December 15. The unemployment rate in Žilina is 7.9 percent, which is well below the Slovak average of 12.35 percent.

Sungwoo Hitech is themain supplier of components for Hyundai Motors in Czech Nošovice and Kia Motors near Žilina, the SITA newswire reported.

According to Sungwoo Hitech’s own website, the company has branches in South Korea, India, China, Russia and the Czech Republic. It established a plant in Slovakia in 2006, Sungwoo Hitech Slovakia, as a logistics centre for coordinating supplies from Sungwoo Hitech in the Czech city of Ostrava to Kia Motors Slovakia in Teplička nad Váhom, near Žilina. While the company was initially focused on logistics, it has redirected its attention to production related to the car industry, currently making up as much 70 percent of its activities, TASR wrote.

Kia Motors Slovakia manufactured 313,000 cars in 2013 with the plan to manufacture more cars this year.

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