Delphi celebrates 10 years and plans further growth in Romania

WEBWIRE – Sunday, December 09, 2007

Delphi organization celebrates 10 years of doing business in Romania, at the same time expanding with the recently announced new diesel engine management system (EMS) components plant in Iasi.

The company has been operating in the country since 1997 when the first plant in Sannicolau Mare was opened. Today, Delphi’s two manufacturing Electrical/ Electronic Architecture (EEA) facilities in Sannicolau Mare and Ineu (northwest of Romania) employ collectively 10,000 people.

The anniversary creates a great occasion to summarize achievements and recognize employees who have been with Delphi from the beginning. Special events with personnel in Sannicolau Mare and Ineu took place in early December during which local authorities recognized Delphi for its commitment to development in the region.

"Having worked together for a decade, we built a team of professionals that still has perspective for further growth" said Cristian Gulicska, Delphi Packard EEA Romania Country Director. "We faced numerous challenges and proved that we are ready for further opportunities. From a time perspective, we consider the decision to establish operations in Romania successful"

Delphi’s investment criteria for Romania, as for all new regions, were to follow the group’s vehicle-maker customers, develop a skilled workforce, use the existing infrastructure and obtain local government support.

Electrical/ Electronic Architecture plant in Sannicolau Mare and Ineu

Delphi started its business in Romania with Electrical and Electronic Distribution Systems (E/EDS) production to support European car production. In 1999, Delphi completed the site development and construction of the second building in Sannicolau Mare. From 8,200 sqm in the beginning, the site was expanded to accommodate more customer programs and has grown to 22,000 sqm today.

The construction of the plant in Ineu began in May 2004. In November 2004, the first finished harness was manufactured. Today, the Delphi plant in Ineu is the main employer in the Arad area.

Delphi plants in Sannicolau Mare and Ineu manufacture Electrical/Electronic Architecture for several European automakers. The plants supply wiring harnesses —body, interior, doors and small harnesses — to customer assembly plants located in Western and Eastern Europe.

Delphi recently announced that its Romanian plants deliver their products for the new Renault Twingo model, having a short delivery time to the automaker’s Novo Mesto assembly plant in Slovenia. The wiring system is manufactured under the Kaizen Manufacturing System to ensure best-in-class quality and delivery. Delphi also supplies from Romania the complete Electrical/ Electronic Distribution Systems for the recently introduced Mercedes-Benz C-Class.

Delphi’s plants in Romania are committed to being a clean, safe and efficient workplace — offering opportunities for employees at all levels. As everywhere else in the world, Delphi offers career development opportunities, professional internal and external training in an environment based on teamwork.

To ensure the proper quality of the products, car manufacturers have always paid great attention to the quality within the complete supply chain. The common quality "language" in the automotive industry has been established through introduction of ISO/TS 16949 - quality standards agreed to by American, European and Japanese car manufacturers. Both Delphi EEA plants in Romania have already been recertified with ISO/TS 16949.

New Delphi Diesel Systems plant in Iasi

In a move to service its growing customer base, Delphi announced plans in mid-July 2007 to open a new diesel engine management system (EMS) components plant. It has already initiated activities in a leased facility (brownfield) which is a pre-existing industrial site in Iasi where Delphi will begin production of diesel pumps and injectors by the end of 2008.

Delphi has well-developed expansion plans that call for several additional investment projects to launch products specified in new business contracts that have already been awarded. Each of these future multi-million-dollar investment projects is for new buildings, machinery and equipment and will support attainment of long-range planned capacity in Iasi. Subject to Delphi’s board of directors supporting future investment projects, Delphi’s presence in Iasi, could reach more than 1,000 workers and total investment could exceed 100 million euros.

Currently Delphi is continuing its business plan of starting the brownfield operation. This part of our overall project is on schedule and Delphi is working on the planning for the greenfield. For more information about Delphi, visit http://www.delphi.com/media

For more information contact:

Delphi

Agnieszka Przymusinska

Agnieszka.Przymusinska@delphi.com

48 12 252 10 33

Romanian justice minister to resign amid corruption probe

BUCHAREST, Romania: Romania's justice minister, under investigation for allegedly abusing his position in a real estate deal, said he would hand in his resignation Monday.

Tudor Chiuariu, who became justice minister earlier this year, announced his intentions Sunday, two days after President Traian Basescu had publicly asked for his removal.

In September, anti-corruption prosecutors accused Chiuariu and a former telecommunications minister, Zsolt Nagy, of corruption in a real estate deal and asked Basescu to approve an investigation.

Investigations of public officials and former ministers must be approved by the president.

Prosecutors say Chiuariu and Nagy abused their positions when they sold real estate owned by the national post office in April to a private company reported to be linked to the ruling Liberal Party, of which Chiuariu is a member.

Chiuariu and Nagy have denied the allegations and Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu resisted pressure to fire the justice minister.

"I do not want personal and political disputes to affect the activity and the credibility of state institutions," Chiuariu said Sunday. "But I promise you that when this ridiculous set up is over, I will come back to continue" the reform of the justice system.

Chiuariu's predecessor, Monica Macovei, was widely credited with having pushed anti-corruption reforms. The prime minister fired her in April.

A month after he took up his position, Chiuariu came under criticism when he called for the removal of a senior anti-corruption prosecutor who is investigating several politicians.

Romania joined the European Union on Jan. 1 and was told to clean up high-level corruption.

Moldovans suspicious of Romania’s intentions

By Tony Barber
The Financial Times

White-haired, ruddy-faced, the monotonous fluency of his speech betraying his earlier career as a Soviet Communist party apparatchik, Vladimir Voronin has the glint of political battle in his eyes.

As he explained this week during a visit to Brussels, his adversary is Romania, the country that borders Moldova, of which he is president.

Mr Voronin was Soviet Moldavia’s interior minister in 1989 when the republic’s communist authorities used force to disperse thousands of anti-Soviet demonstrators in Chisinau, the capital.

Now Moldavia is Moldova, an independent but poor and fragile country of 4.3m people, vulnerable to pressure from Russia and Romania, its more powerful neighbours.

Mr Voronin, an ethnic Russian who became president in 2001, once pursued overtly pro-Russian policies. He adjusted his stance in 2003, largely because of Moscow’s support for Trans Dnestr, a separatist region of eastern Moldova inhabited mainly by Russians and Ukrainians.

If Moldova’s eastern, Russian problem refuses to go away, so too does its western, Romanian one.

In Brussels, Mr Voronin spoke forcefully about what he portrayed as a Romanian attempt to subvert Moldova’s independence.

“Romania doesn’t recognise our national identity. They don’t recognise a Moldovan ethnicity or Moldovan language. For them, there is no Moldovan history,” he told the Financial Times and two other reporters.

“Our relations are really difficult now with Romania. We understand that Romania is a European Union and Nato member, and we cannot afford to make political attacks on Romania. But we’ve discussed this with our European friends. More than that, I will send a message to all leaders of EU member-states in the next few days to explain the situation.”

The core of the issue is Moldovan identity. Many Romanians and foreign experts think there is practically no difference between a Romanian and a Moldovan in language and culture.

In its World Factbook, the US Central Intelligence Agency, which has no particular axe to grind on this subject, lists Moldova’s largest ethnic group as “Moldovan/Romanian, 78.2 per cent”.

The CIA also describes Moldovan as “virtually the same as the Romanian language”. Both entries neatly capture the difficulty of deciding if Moldovans are a nationality distinct from Romanians.

Much of modern Moldova fell under the Russian empire’s control in the 19th century, formed part of Romania between 1918 and 1940, and was under Soviet rule from 1945 to 1991.

In Mr Voronin’s view, Romania went beyond acceptable limits last week when its ambassador to Moldova said Bucharest would not sign a treaty recognising today’s Romanian-Moldovan frontier as delineated in a 1947 Soviet-Romanian accord.

For Moldova’s leaders, the implication was that Romania might one day lay claim to Moldovan territory. Mr Voronin said Romania was already undermining Moldovans’ identity by encouraging them to acquire Romanian passports.

“Some 10,000 Moldovan students study in Romania each year. After graduating in these institutions, the Moldovans come back with Romanian passports,” he said. “Moldovans can get Romanian citizenship on easy terms. For example, each of us can apply for Romanian citizenship by e-mail.”

However, asked if Romania might one day absorb Moldova, he strikes a defiant note. “No country has united with another one after joining the EU. It can’t be done. Moldova has existed for 650 years and will exist for at least another 6,500,” he told Moldovan TV last week.

Eastern European countries compete for lucrative Hollywood movie productions

VILNIUS, Lithuania: Ducking beneath a shower of bullets, three unshaven men in filthy overcoats jump out of a concealed forest dugout, dragging a heavy machine gun and shouting commands to fellow rebels.

A brutal battle ensues between Nazi soldiers and resistance fighters under the leaden sky, and in the din — replete with explosions — the cattle in a neighboring village trample away in fright.

But it's all an illusion on the set of "Defiance," a World War II action flick recounting the story of a Jewish resistance movement in the Polish-Belarussian forests.

The US$50 million (€33 million) production, set for 2008 release, was a major victory for Lithuania, a country of 3.4 million people, which beat out bigger Poland and Romania as potential shooting sites. Eastern European movie sites are fighting for Hollywood cash with nearly as much ferocity as the fake battles in the movies.

As producers Ed Zwick and Pieter Jan Brugge explained, while searching for ideal sites, they looked for a setting that had thick forests and an urban landscape nearby.

"We actually explored the location on the 'Google Earth' to see how the forest was accessible to the city center," said Zwick, producer of blockbusters including "The Last Samurai" and "Blood Diamond."

The two found no adequate settings around the Polish capital, Warsaw, and Romania's forests are high in the mountains and too far away from Bucharest. So they chose Vilnius, Lithuania's capital.

For the post-communist economies of Eastern Europe, international movie production is a bonanza.

Foreign movie productions brought some US$76 million (€52 million) to the Czech Republic in 2006, according to Dusana Chrenekova, spokeswoman for Barrandov Studios.

Bogdan Moncea, marketing director of Castel Film in Romania, said foreign film studios over the past five years have injected over US$183 million (€124 million) into the economy. This year, Castel Film produced "Adam Resurrected," a Holocaust-related movie directed by Paul Schrader and starring Willem Dafoe and Jeff Goldblum, as well as "Mirrors," a thriller starring Kiefer Sutherland.

But times have changed. In the early 1990s, Eastern European cities could entice Hollywood producers with a simple combination of Old World charm and significant cost savings. Now they must dangle technology, experience and even tax reductions in order to lure the multimillion dollar productions.

In Hungary, the government has approved a huge tax break for movie productions, and the Romanians may follow suit.

The incentives are paying off. Next year, a slew of grade-A films shot in Eastern Europe — including "Transsiberian" with Woody Harrelson and Ben Kingsley — will be released.

Competition among premier Eastern European locations is stiff, and each studio does what it can to entice foreign productions — particularly now that the region has become considerably more expensive.

MediaPro, a Romanian studio that recently produced Joel Schumacher's horror flick "Town Creek," estimates that filming costs are 20 percent lower in Romania than in the Czech Republic.

But Chrenekova of Barrandov Studios, which last year opened what it claims is Europe's largest soundproof stage, measuring 44,800 square feet, cautions that you get what you pay for.

"As far as Romania and Bulgaria, which are the cheapest places for moviemaking, they don't have the proper infrastructure and lack the specialists we have," she said.

Ramunas Skikas, director of the Lithuanian film studios LKS, agrees that the final decision often boils down to funds.

"Most of us (Eastern European countries) offer similar scenery and quality of services, but the one thing that makes up filmmakers' minds is the production cost," Skikas said, adding that costs in Lithuania are 20 percent lower than in competing countries.

The Lithuanian countryside was used for the sweeping battle scenes in the TV-miniseries "War and Peace" based on Leo Tolstoy's legendary novel. The four-part series, produced by several European countries, was first shown in October in Belgium.

But as countries such as Hungary and the Czech Republic catch up with Western Europe in terms of prices, government support can mean the difference — which is why Hungary now offers filmmakers a 20 percent tax rebate.

Incentives like these show to what extent countries are willing to go to keep producers returning and why film-making is here to stay.

"In the digital age, production traveling is a given, and films will be made where they can best be served," said Iain Smith, producer of "Cold Mountain," a movie that was impugned by Hollywood filmmaker unions for being filmed entirely in Romania even though the subject matter was the U.S. Civil War.