Aluminium plant’s future hopefully secured.
Although the TLM creditor’s assembly lasted the entire day, it has ended favourably. The appearance of the Slovenian company Impol on the scene has been finally confirmed. The first trucks with raw materials are expected to arrive next week, and the production that has been stopped a long time ago is to commence once again, reports Večernji List on March 10, 2016.
In the next five years, according to Jernej Čokl, CEO of Impol, the Slovenian company plans to invest 70 million euros and hire 250 workers as a part of the first stage of recovery. Impol is in the same line of work as TLM, so the opportunities for development are much bigger since, besides the production itself, TLM also has to find new markets.
A segment of the production will be directed towards Impol’s rolling mill plant in Slovenia. In subsequent stages, the company plans to hire about 100 workers, while the final, full-capacity count will be 400.
If the volume of deliveries increases, the full production capacity will amount to 100,000 tonnes annually. Čokl has already announced the TLM’s ambitions regarding the auto-industry. Goran Pauk, prefect of Šibenik-Knin County, has previously emphasized the importance of TLM’s recovery, not only for his county, but for the entire Croatia.
According to Pauk, the production of 150,000 tonnes of the aluminium products would affect Croatian total exports by three percent, while the industrial exports would be affected by 10 to 15 percent, with a resulting positive impact on BDP and employment levels. TLM has not had any luck with private owners so far. Last year, they thought they would be saved by Russian entrepreneur Igor Šamis, but the situation soon worsened when they realized this was far from reality. Impol has been interested in TLM for a long time, but the state has, for some reason, waited to resolve the situation, and that has brought the company more losses last year in the amount of 120 milion kuna.
