On Wednesday German woven fabrics producer Technical Textiles opened a plant in the industrial zone of Stip - investment worth €15 million. The plant is to be engaged in the production of insulating materials for construction, automotive and aerospace industries.

Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, the Director of the Directorate for Technological Industrial Development Zones Viktor Mizo and the Head of Technical Textiles Jenson Vandland opened the plant which will provide employment for one hundred people.

Gruevski said that in future thousand new jobs are expected to be created in this factory which will have great significance for the municipalities Stip, Kocani, Veles, Sveti Nikole, Karbinci, Lozovo, Konce, Cesinovo-Oblesevo and surrounding areas.

This is the second plant opened in the Technological Industrial Development Zone. Johnson Controls is operating for several years in the zone and now Technical Textiles is starting to work. Very soon the Italian company "Kondevo" will begin its investment and will create 250 new jobs. These are excellent starters of the region of Stip. The local economy has already felt the impact of new investments. New plant Aktiva has been opened several months ago. This plant is directly related to Belgian investment of Van Hool which we managed to attract in the past years. Another plant by the German company Semak Fashion is expected to be constructed in the following period. The company bought 35, 000 sqm land in this zone. If once Stip was city where factories were closed, today we are witnessing the reverse trend. Today, the region of Stip has been transformed into a big construction site. Many facilities are being constructed, plants are being opened, people are employed and the unemployment rate is slowly but surely going down, and it affects to better life of citizens. It is a great satisfaction with our work so far, Gruevski said.

He noted that the Government continues the investments in the industrial zones in the country. We continue investing efforts to improve the business climate in the country, to reduce the bureaucratic procedures and all that means better service of the state apparatus to foreign investment.

Our results are well known and visible in Macedonia. The investors also speak about this. Mr. Vandland is a witness of this - he, at the time of search for a location for his new business venture, renounced Abu Dhabi and came to Macedonia where he met a friendly Government, good investment conditions, fast procedures for the start of the investment, which resulted in opening of this plant, Gruevski said.

The Head of Technical Textiles Jenson Vandland said that beside hundred employees that currently work in the plant, it is planned for the number of employees to reach 300 by the end of the year.

In May last year I was on a plane to Abu Dhabi to sign a contract to build a new production hall i.e. this one where we are now, and it was planned to be built in Abu Dhabi. Then in an economic magazine I read a small article on Macedonia. Good investment opportunities were offered. That’s why I decided to switch planes and to go to Macedonia in order to inform myself in details about investing in your country. There were other countries which have offered subsidies from the European Union or other large financial support. But Macedonia, among other things, offers many motivated workers, many potential collaborators, strong municipal and state support and much more. And this makes Macedonia very interesting for us. Through the German-Macedonian Business Association we contacted Mr. Mizo, and he and his team gave us very detailed information about the possibilities of opening a manufacturing plant in the industrial free zones. I was quickly convinced by the programme which was offered to me and immediately started to work on the project, Vandland said.

He noted that the construction of the plant was completed in 14 months. At the moment, the company employs 100 people, and will have about 300 employees by year-end and early next year.

If the investment is moving in a positive direction, as we expect, we are prepared to increase the number of employees and in the following years to climb up to a thousand employees, and make other investments in other projects in the country. Our scope of work consists in producing technical textile from fibreglass, which is often used in many areas such as facade insulation windmills, shipping industry and other sectors, Vandland said.

The Director of the Directorate for Technological Industrial Development Zones Viktor Mizo said the new plant Technical Textiles in Stip which is built on an area of 13,000 square meters, represents an investment worth €15 million. Mizo said that in addition to creating jobs, the construction of the plant will contribute to access of new technologies, transfer of knowledge, establishing cooperation with domestic companies and export increase.

Companies located in the industrial zones are becoming, to a greater extent, carriers of the economic activity in the country. In the first seven months of the year, exports of the companies located in the industrial zones amounted to over €820 million, which is an increase of 24 percent compared to the same period in 2014. We note continuous growth of the created jobs - 3.500 new jobs created in 2014 and in 2015 we project around 5.000 new jobs in companies located in the Technological Industrial Development Zones, Mizo said.