At the same time, the turnover of Continental Automotive Products went up by over 33% in euros last year, to approximately 217 million euros (786.6 million lei).

According to local newspapers, this makes the German company the biggest player in Romania. Michelin Romania posted about 200 million euro (727.3 million RON) turnover last year. The increase in Michelin’s business, some 40% exceeded that of Continental in terms of growth rate, but the French have been operating at a loss for a number of years. However, Michelin Romania says it expects to get back into the black this year, the news reports added.

Continental has been present on the Romanian market since the late 1990s, when it made the decision to invest 100 million euros in a factory in Timisoara. It later invested another 70 million euros in expansion, with the factory set to reach a production capacity of 16 million tyres a year by 2008. The list of European tyre manufacturers producing in Romania will swell this year following Pirelli’s decision to open a high-performance tyre factory in Slatina, as a result of approximately 110 million euros of investment.