Agricultural tractors 100% Romanian Concept

By Edwig Ban
Until the mid-1990s, Romania was a force in the production of tractors in Central and Eastern Europe. The Brasov plant was famous for the TBU brand both in Europe and North Africa. Almost 5000 pieces were sold in Algeria.
The factories in Craiova and Miercurea Ciuc manufactured high-powered tractors and track tractors, respectively.
The privatization roller has come and the tractors industry has died in Romania.
From a major manufacturer, Romania has become a major importer. Former TBU dealers, like Austrian firms, then came to Romania to sell well-known brands in the world.
Like the Phoenix bird, the tractors industry has risen.
The first big success is announced by a small factory in the center of Romania.
IRUM Reghin recently presented in Bucharest the first agricultural tractor manufactured in Romania, after a 10-year break, an investment of 4 million euros.
“The total investment in this project was over 4 million euros, and the project duration was about 5 years and summed up the work of 50 engineers. As the main objectives, we aimed to bring out a quality/price tractor to be able to be addressed to all the farmers but especially to the small and medium ones We have put a great emphasis on the visual identity and in this regard we have invested heavily in design The most important thing: which can be exported to the whole world and represent the Romanian industry well, “declared Andrei Oltean, director of development IRUM Reghin.
The Tagro tractor was built in the Research and Development Center for Agricultural and Forestry Machinery – IFOR – which operates at Reghin. This center is unique in Europe and was set up by the Maviprod group of companies at IRUM, following an investment of 2.65 million euros. The center has about 50 employees, Romanian engineers. The investment in the Tagro project materialized another 4 million euros made available by the Maviprod Group, the IRUM shareholder.
“IRUM currently sells 500 machines in a market where 2,500 agricultural machinery are sold, and in 2028 it is expected that this market of agricultural tractors will reach 8,000 units per year”, added Andrei Oltean.
The serial production of this tractor will start in April 2019, and IRUM Reghin estimates that 200 tractors will be produced and sold in the first year, 300 tractors will be exceeded in 2020, and another 500 tractors will be in 2021 TAGRO.
In turn, IRUM’s General Manager, Mihai Olteanu, claims that the company is ready to cope with the forecast labor-intensive production, as the number of staff increased by 100 in the last year.
“If one year ago we had 500 employees now we have 600. The biggest problem is not to find the number of people, the problem is that you have to qualify them. We are talking about medium-sized workforce,” he said .
The new tractor will “go” from Romania, primarily to its neighbors, in Hungary, where the company already has its own headquarters to be expanded, but “the markets of Bulgaria, Ukraine are very attractive”.