At the beginning of 2014, in the Technological Industrial Development Zone Shtip, Johnson Controls opened their factory for the manufacture of upholstery and car seat covers. At the launch, the Prime Minister at the time, Nikola Gruevski, announced that the company was going to invest 20 million euros and employ 1,400 people.
The construction of the factory began on October 17, 2011. In July 2012, the Commission for Protection of Competition approved state aid for the company, and, as in other cases, the Commission had not disclosed the exact amount of financial assistance granted.
The aid was to cover the cost of compulsory social insurance contributions based on employees’ salaries, a grant of an unknown amount for the creation of new jobs, exemption from corporate income tax and personal income tax of employees for a 10-year period, and exemption from VAT on imports of goods.
Furthermore, in addition to customs deductions, the state exempted the company from fees for management of the construction land and shared construction costs for the building in which the factory was to be located.
At the end of 2015, this factory had 1,773 workers, while the value of their non-current assets was 16.4 million euros.
In 2016, the number of employees decreased by twenty people, to 1756. Thus, this is one of the few companies that underestimated with the number of announced jobs.
On a global level, at the end of October 2016, Johnson Controls branched off Adient Seating from its group, and the ownership of the company in Shtip changed. Currently, the owner of the factory is Macedonian company Adient Seating owned by a company of the same name, based in Guernsey.
The so-called tax havens, such as the ones in the state of Guernsey, located in the La Manche Channel are world sanctuaries of close-up capital, used by rich people and businessmen to escape high taxes in their home country.