The Tunisian company Coficab was announced at the end of 2013 as an investment that should be in the amount of 10 million euros and that should create 150 new jobs in Kavadarci.
According to information from the field, such a factory, which was announced as having a production facility in the vicinity of Drexelmeier in Kavadarci, does not exist. BIRN could not even find information that such a company has been registered in Macedonia, and Minister Vele Samak, who announced this investment, did not answer our questions sent by e-mail, nor did he answer our calls. This investment is not mentioned in the VMRO-DPMNE Accountability Report as well.
It is a Drexelmeier partner company, which opens factories together with Drexelmeier everywhere. “The company has already visited Macedonia and from what they have said it is rather certain that they will come to Macedonia to produce certain parts necessary for Drexelmeier’s production”, said Gruevski in 2013.
The investment was supposed to start as brownfield, in an existing facility, and next year (2014) it was announced that the company would also make a greenfield investment by making a new factory. It was announced that Coficab would start operations in December 2013, and that the call for employing the first workers was already published.
“They saw the size of the local market and decided to invest this summer. The company is situated at an existing location in Kavadarci, from whence they will start supplying Drexelmeier with cables from mid-December, and shortly thereafter they will also supply Kromberg and Shubert”, said Samak.
Coficab produces electronic cables and wiring for the automotive industry. The first factory was opened in 1992 in Tunisia, and in the past two decades they have opened factories in Portugal, Morocco and Romania in 2005. Coficab is a supplier for Mercedes, Volkswagen, Peugeot, Citroen, Renault, Fiat, BMW, Opel, Ford etc.