UPDATE: Nokia closes down plant in Jucu. This measure is ‘painful but necessary,’ say Nokia officials

UPDATE: Finnish company Nokia has announced that it will close down the Jucu plant by the end of the year. The production unit will be moved to the Moldova Republic, according to Valerian Vreme, the minister of communications. 

However, this information was denied by Stephen Elop, Nokia president, who answered a question from Hotnews.ro.

“As far as I know, we are talking about 90 percent of the employees, which means  1,900 people,” said the minister.

On the other hand, Elop said that the production in Cluj “will be absorbed by plants in China and Asia, but relocation to the Moldova Republic is not taken in consideration.”

The company broke the news to its employees via an internal letter in English which said this measure is “painful but necessary.”

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 “We plan to ramp down our manufacturing facility in Cluj, Romania by the end of 2011. We are aligning our manufacturing in Europe with consumer behavior in Europe. Specifically, smartphones sales in Europe have increased while feature phones sales in Europe have decreased, and the majority of our work in Cluj has been around feature phones manufacturing,” said the company.

 After the close of the factory in Jucu, Cluj, Nokia plans to “shift gradually the focus in the Salo, Komarom and Reynosa factories from device assembly to customer and market-specific software and sales package customization. These factories are expected to continue to play a key role in serving smartphone customers in Europe, Eurasia and the Americas,” said the company.

 Nokia made a EUR 60 million investment into the plant in Jucu, Cluj, starting production in 2008, after moving the unit from Bochum, Germany.

The note also said: “We expect there will be impacts to personnel in 2012. The extent of this impact is expected to be known in the first quarter of 2012 after consultations with employee representatives. We expect no impact to personnel in 2011.

Nokia announced in April that it would axe 120 positions in Romania, in line with the company’s global strategy to cut down on its labor force and consolidate its operations. The company also announced that the R&D center in Cluj, which is located in the Olympia Business Center, would be dissolved. However, at that point, Nokia officials said no changes were planned to take place in the Jucu. Read the entire news here.

Otilia Haraga