Nidec Corporation officially announced its decision to open a new European production hub in the city of Novi Sad in the Republic of Serbia. It is a 1.5 billion euro ($1.8 billion) worth investment in the construction of the factory of motors for electric vehicles (EV) and household appliances.

The future Nidec electric motor factory in Novi Sad

Nidec, which is known for making precision motors used in computer hard drives and smartphones, will build the manufacturing center in Novi Sad, northern Serbia, with completion of the first two factories employing 1,200 people expected in 2022, Jun Seki, Nidec’s chief operating officer told at a news conference.

At the event held at the office of the President of the Republic of Serbia and attended by President Aleksandar Vučić, Mayor of Novi Sad Miloš Vučević, and Japanese Ambassador to Serbia Takahiko Katsumata, among others, the Company announced its plan to launch a business in Serbia, and invest around 1.5 billion euros in the construction of a manufacturing plant. 

Along with the production plant, Nidec intends to open a Research & Development Centre in Serbia. The company has a plan to start the construction of the factory in September and complete it in the middle of 2022.

The factory in Novi Sad will comprise a 59,760 square meters unit for the production of automotive motors and a 36,000 square meters plant for automotive inverters. Nidec will initially employ 1,000 employees and 200 employees, respectively.

The factory will be one of the company's largest production hubs in Europe with an annual output of between 200,000 units and 300,000 units by 2023.

"While the company's multiple businesses will be operated at the same sites to seek synergies by sharing the same production infrastructure and back-office, the new business bases will engage in, among others, supplying products to the European market, while looking to design and develop products locally in Serbia, a country abundant in people in the fields of science and engineering who are fluent in English," said Nidec in its statement.

The company opened an office in Novi Sad on April 8. On the same day, Nidec completed the execution of a strategic alliance agreement with the University of Novi Sad to actively engage in, among other activities, technological exchanges via industry-academia partnerships.

The Nidec Group operates in 40 countries, has 340 companies employing 120,000 people. The plan is to employ 480 people in Novi Sad in the first phase, and with the development of the company, according to their estimates, they will need 10,000 workers in Serbia.