French auto components multinational Faurecia will open a $30.9 million plant producing exhausts in the eastern Czech town of Karvina.
The new plant should open in the first quarter of 2009 with 300 employees. Faurecia also plans to recruit an extra 700 workers at its 50 million euro Pisek plant in the center of the Czech Republic by the end of 2009, where 1,000 workers have been making doors, seats and exhausts since its opening last year.
Jobs at both sites will be offered to workers at two other Faurecia plants in the Czech Republic which will close. The seat cover factories -- at Tabor and Pocatky -- together employ 564 workers, but cannot compete against cheaper competition from Asia and Africa, the company said.
Faurecia is Europe's second-biggest car components manufacturer. It has expanded its activities in the Czech Republic, which now is its sixth most significant production site worldwide.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2008
