Johnson Controls opens new plant in Strumica

Following the success of its plant in Stip, Johnson Controls will be opening a new capacity in Strumica, an investment worth $20 million that is set to open 1,500 new jobs.

The project will start off as a Brownfield investment, in an existing facility, only to be turned afterwards in a Greenfield investment in the spring of 2017 at the latest, it was announced Tuesday by Johnson Controls Global Director Willy Van-Looy and Viktor Mizo, CEO of the directorate for industrial zones.

Johnson Controls intends to hire 3,000 people in its Strumica plant in the next three years.

“We are facing capacity-related challenges in Europe and as a result we have made in-depth analyzes coming to a conclusion that we should invest here,” Van-Looy stated after a meeting with PM Nikola Gruevski.

The fact that Johnson Controls is reinvesting in Macedonia reaffirms the successfulness of the government-run policies on improving the business climate, according to Mizo.

“Johnson Controls has invested in Macedonia three times so far, beginning in 2006 in Skopje, then in 2011 in Stip and now in Strumica,” he stressed.

The investment plan envisages the employment process to begin by the end of the year with 300 jobs created by late 2016.

“As in Stip, where initially 1,250 people were planned to be employed, while now a total of 1,700 are working, we plan on translating these figures in Strumica as well,” Mizo noted.

Answering to journalist questions, the Macedonian CEO said Visteon Electronics was planning to complete its production process in Macedonia by the end of 2016. In the meantime, contacts have been established with other companies that one way of the other could use the Visteon plant to invest in Macedonia and expand their manufacturing processes.