Continental extends office building in Iasi following EUR 27 M investment

German automotive group Continental has started works to extend the existing office building in Iasi, eastern Romania. The building has been designed to host up to 1,700 seats, a testing area and complete validation of the products developed within the company.

The investment mounts to EUR 27 million. The new building will have eight floors, stretching on over 21,000sqm. 400 new parking lots will be also in store. The works will be concluded by March 2020.

“When I came to Romania in 2009, Continental had over 7,000 employees countrywide. We have reached today more than 20,000. We are a big family. Here, in Iasi, our colleagues are working on the cars that will be on the streets in 1, 2 or 5 years. They are working on the technology of the future in electromobility, connectivity and on autonomous driving,” stated Christian von Albrichsfeld, Head of Country Continental Romania.

“The Continental research and development centre in Iasi has grown from 30 people in 2006 to over 1,900 at the end of 2018. This growth came following the growing number of projects that our colleagues are involved in. The investment proves the importance that the company is giving to the engineering centre in Iasi”, said in his turn Marian Petrescu, the manager of the Continental unit in Iasi.

Continental  has also kicked off works to expand pro­duc­tion fa­cil­i­ties in Lou­sado, Por­tu­gal, with in­vest­ments of around EUR 100 mil­lion.  The new capacity will be used for the production of radial Earthmoving and Port tires with a diameter larger than 24 inches. In the course of the ramp-up, more than 100 new jobs will be created.