CIE LT Forge investment in Marijampolė secures contracts with Audi, Renault and Volkswagen

The Spanish-capital automotive parts producer CIE LT Forge based in Marijampolė has opened a second shaft production line. The company’s EUR 10 million investment will triple the company’s production capacity.

“After long and fierce negotiations that lasted for over a year, we have managed to secure all of the contracts we require with Audi, Renault and Volkswagen factories in Hungary, Poland and Romania,” Darius Masionis, general manager of CIE LT Forge, said in a press release.

It took two years to complete the launch of the new line, a project which has created 60 jobs. The company recruited production operators, technicians, assemblers, electrician-automation specialists and experts in quality engineering. On the initiative of CIE LT Forge, more than half of these employees have been sent to Spain for training and a fifth of them have now acquired qualifications in automotive engineering.

“CIE Automotive was one of the first foreign capital companies that had strong belief in the prospects for the car-part manufacturing industry in Lithuania, so its further expansion is particularly important. It shows that despite the arrival of the industry giants, there are still further growth opportunities for the sector in Lithuania,” Minister of Economy Virginijus Sinkevičius said.

The second shaft production line features automated controls, better production efficiency and higher quality processing. With the opening of the new line, production capacity has tripled to 1.5 million units per year. The new line produces crankshafts for Audi, Renault and Volkswagen vehicles.

CIE LT Forge is a modern metal processing company specialising in the production of automotive components that require a special manufacturing process and high-quality processing. In 2017, turnover at CIE LT Forge reached EUR 19.5 million (in 2016, EUR 14.3 million). The number of employees has risen from 156 to 223 over the last year.

Source: Verslo žinios