Homegrown ferroconcrete coming

  • 2003-05-29
RIGA

Europe's largest ferroconcrete producer, the Finnish firm Consolis, plans to invest 7 million euros to build a production plant in Latvia, according to board member Andrejs Cakste.

He told journalists May 22 that construction of the plant in the Stopini district, a few miles east of the capital Riga, will begin later this year.

The plant will produce prefabricated, tailor-made ferroconcrete frames up to 30 meters long that enable builders to construct buildings quickly.

The firm is building the plant to meet the high demand for ferroconcrete buildings in Latvia and to defray the high transportation costs of shipping it from plants in Estonia and Lithuania. Consolis has three plants in Estonia and one in Lithuania.

Consolis officials said the company wanted to expand rapidly in the Baltic market, which was outpacing the rest of Europe in terms of growth.

Consolis will operate in Latvia under the subsidiary Strangbeton and the plant will be one of the largest in the country, covering an area of 13 hectares, according to Strangbeton's executive director Vladimirs Camans.

The company expects to begin construction later this summer and start producing by the fall. Construction will be completed by the spring, Camans said.

He expects the company to reach 10 million euros in turnover within two years and pay for the plant building costs within five years.

Consolis was founded in 1997 and now operates 50 plants in 11 European countries. The company posted a net turnover of 543 million euros and a profit of 30.4 million euros in 2001.