The Czech plant of Hyundai said on Feb. 28 that in order to raise the factory's annual production capacity from 200,000 to 300,000 cars it would create about 1,000 new jobs.
"The launch of the third shift will require about 1,000 new jobs, of this 650 this year and 350 next year. Our workforce will then rise to 3,600," said Petr Vanek, spokesman for Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Czech based at Nosovice in the northeast Czech Republic. Vanek said the plant planned to introduce the third shift this autumn.
The increased production will also require a new gearbox plant in addition to the current facility which supplies gearboxes to Hyundai and its sister plant making Kia vehicles across the border in Zilina, northern Slovakia. "Vanek said about the plant expected to cost 3.5 billion koruna (US$199 million.)
Hyundai's Czech factory raised output at an annual pace of 70% to 200,135 vehicles last year. About 97% of the cars were exported.
The plant turned out 130,598 Hyundai i30 and i30cw type vehicles, 20,651 ix20 model cars and 48,886 Kia Venga automobiles in 2010.
Vanek said the company would soon move the production of Kia Vengas to Zilina and take over the production of the popular Hyundai ix35 model from the Slovak plant in exchange to help satisfy strong demand for the SUV.
"The Slovak plant can't produce enough cars of this type and customers in Europe have to wait a long time to get them, so we will start producing them in summer," said Vanek.
The factory in Nosovice, which cost 1.1 billion euros, began production in November 2008.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2011
