Prysmian Group has opened a new plant for optical fiber cable production at the factory in Slatina today (May 14). Although the Slatina factory has been making cables for 40 years, optical fiber cable production only began in 2009, with opening of a new unit. The latest addition to the factory will triple production capacity from 500,000 km to 1.5 million km of cable a year, with the potential of extending capacity still further to 3 million km annually.

The investment in expanding production was of EUR 15 million, and is part of a wider investment plan of some EUR 50 million.

“The investment in the new facility in Slatina is part of a major plan to further reinforce the Group’s competitiveness in this fast-changing market” said Prysmian Group CEO Valerio Battista. The CEO went on to list a number of new demands coming from the telecom industry, “new players and services are appearing and evolution in broadband, double-play and triple-play services is dynamic,” which appear to be forcing Prysmian Group to innovate, invest and develop in order to keep up.

The Slatina plant has a covered area of around 42,000 sqm and with today's opening, it has a total yearly production capacity of 30,000 tons of energy cable -from High Voltage cables up to 110kV and building wires, to Power and Instrumentation & Control cables, almost 1.5 million km of optical cable and 500,000 km of copper telecom cable. The Slatina factory currently employs over 400 people.

Prysmian Group has an 11 percent global market share in communication cable manufacturing, with 24 production facilities worldwide. Overall, Prysmian Group recorded sales of some EUR 8 billion in 2012, had about 20,000 employees across 50 countries and 91 plants in total, including the cable manufacturing facilities.

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: the company)