Plastic Engineering in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, is to move its Romanian operation to a larger facility in order to reach sales of £2m in the next two years.
The firm supplies a range of components to the automotive industry such as seatbelts, air bags, fuel tanks and steering columns.
It also supplies the gas and chemicals industries with products such as chemical dispensers and gas meters.
The company set up a Romanian branch in a rented facility in June in Targu Mures, in the north of the country, and is sharing the premises with Kern Liebers.
Kern Liebers provides the springs that go into Plastic Engineering’s PE seat belts and as the firms share some of the same customers they have established a joint supply agreement.
Steven Mills, Plastic Engineering managing director, said moving to a larger premises in the same town would help it supply “three or four particularly important” customers. The move to larger premises should see the Romanian Plastic Engineering workforce rise from 10 to 20 over the next two years.
He added: “We are going there because our customer base is very close to the factory. It’s a strengthening of the business in terms of increasing our presence in Europe in the global supply chain.”
Plastic Engineering is looking to secure funding of €750,000 (£507,000) and is hoping to attract around 70% of this in EU grants. However, Mills said applications have not yet been submitted and the EU will not make any grant decisions before 1 January 2008.
In the UK and Romania, Plastic Engineering employs a total of 175 people and has an annual turnover of £15m.
The two tier supplier sells to TRW, KSS, Autoliv and Takata and then onto Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Land Rover, Jaguar, Renault, Peugeot and Ford.
