Romania’s Green Group to enter the Slovak market, investing EUR 8.5 M

The Romanian Green Group, the biggest integrated recycling park in South-Eastern Europe, will invest EUR 8.5 million in building a plant for processing PET bottles and mixed plastics in Slovakia.

The news was confirmed recently by the Slovak Environment Minister Laszlo Solymos in a conference, adding that the investment would create 100 new jobs, as newsnow.tasr.sk informs.

The media point out the firm is not applying for any state assistance. However, the locality where the plant should be built is not known for now. At the same time, the group’s co-founder, Constantin Damov, declined to specify the location with regards to the ongoing talks. He only ruled out it being in Bratislava. The plant should be put into operation in late September 2018. At first it will offer 80 jobs, joined by additional ones later, he said.

Damov said that Green Group’s first investment in the green and circular economy won’t be the last in Slovakia. “It’s just the first step within a much more ambitious project through which we will support a circular economy in Slovakia,” said Damov.

The planned capacity of the new plant is 30,000 tonnes of plastic bottles and mixed plastics. A high as possible share of the waste material will be acquired in Slovakia and will also be cleaned and shred in Slovakia. Components for the automotive industry will subsequently be manufactured in Romania from the material obtained in Slovakia.

According to the Environment Ministry’s State Secretary Norbert Kurilla, the investment is chiefly significant from an environmental viewpoint.

Some 120,000 tonnes of plastic packages were introduced into the Slovak market last year, with only 69,000 tonnes of this being separated.

Established 15 years ago, Green Group is currently comprised of six companies – GreenTech, GreenFiber International, GreenGlass, GreenLamp Reciclare, GreenWEEE International and Total Waste Management – involved in waste collection, transport, processing and recycling, as well as production of polyester fibres from 100-percent recycled PET materials.

Outside Romania, the company also runs branches in Serbia, Macedonia and Lithuania.

As of 2016, Green Group is owned by Abris Capital Partners, one of the leading fund managers in the region.