When running at full speed, the Craiova plant is capable of building 300,000 vehicles and 300,000 engines annually, while employing approximately 7,000 workers. Ford expects to export the majority of Transit Connect units built in Craiova, primarily to Central and Eastern Europe.
"Today marks another step in the evolution of the Craiova Plant, and demonstrates that we are keeping our promise to transform Craiova into a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility," said John Fleming, Chairman and CEO, Ford of Europe.
"Since the first day we became the new owner of the plant in March 2008, our entire team here has been working around the clock to deliver world-class standards of manufacturing quality and efficiency. Once the modernization of the plant is completed and we are running Craiova at full capacity, we will have met our commitment to invest 675 million Euros in this new manufacturing facility."
A thing worth mentioning is that Ford plans to use the Romanian production facility to manufacture a new small car, "which is not the first or the Ka", as the American-based carmaker said. The company hasn't released too many details regarding the model but revealed that it will go into production "in the near future". Last but not least, the newly-opened plant will handle production of a small-displacement EcoBoost petrol engine.
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