The Prodis factory was announced in 2011 and opened in the Technological Industrial Development zone Skopje 1, commonly known as Bunardzik, in October 2012, with the plan to invest 8 million euros and create 160 job by the end of the entire investment process.
The number of employees, in 2014, while the factory was still operational, was 72 people, while in 2016, the number of employees sharply decreased to only 5 people.
The founding capital of Prodis in Macedonia, according to data from the Register of direct investments of non-residents in Macedonia, is 710,976 euros. Company assets, as of 2014, were estimated at 4.8 million euros.
Although former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, in late 2013, announced that Prodis was to expand its business in Macedonia by opening another factory and investing 15 million euros and opening additional 200 new jobs in April 2014, according to latest information, the factory in Bunardzik had recently stopped with its production and closed down.
Employees complained that almost a year did not take a salary. It is unclear whether Prodis plans to start work because the latest information from the management were to be negotiated with a new investor who would have taken the factory.
Employees complained that they had not been paid for almost a year. It is unclear whether Prodis plans to restart work as latest information from the management revealed that negotiations were underway to find a new investor who would take over the factory.
The news regarding the factory’s closing arrived after the company had made a loss of nearly 3 million two years consecutively, in 2013 and 2014.
Prodis in 2013 had a total income of 600 thousand euros, which were reduced by one third the following year. In 2014, the factory had a total income of 400 thousand euros and a loss of 1.7 million euros, which increased by one third compared the loss of 1.3 million euros that Prodis reported for 2013.
In 2015, Prodis did not submit its annual financial statement to the Central Register.
The Prodis factory is owned by Russian citizen, Vadim Yakunin and Macedonian citizen, Kosta Dimov, who is also the manager of the factory.
Vadim Yakunin, who is the owner of the Russian company Protek Group, is known as one of the richest Russian citizens. However, he personally owns the factory in Macedonia, not Protek Group.
The Macedonian-Russian Prodis factory, which began to be built in 2011, was announced as one of the biggest manufacturers of homeopathic medicine in the Balkans, which was to produce both organic and inorganic products from cereals, herbs, vitamins and minerals.
Interestingly, Prodis was the only factory in the country, located in the Technological Industrial Development Zone, that had permission to sell products on the domestic market. The authorities explained that for the products sold in Macedonia, the company did not receive any tax or customs exemptions or deductions because the condition given these was for their products were to be exported outside of the country.
During the cornerstone-laying ceremony, the Russian owner presented to the public an even more ambitious plan for the number of employees the investment would hire in Macedonia.
"This is an investment that will take place in two phases and will provide 300 new jobs," announced the owner of Protek Group, Vadim Sergejevich Yakunin, at the cornerstone-laying ceremony in the presence of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Deputy Prime Minister Zoran Stavreski, Vladimir Pesevski and other representatives of institutions.
Later, at the official opening of the factory, Yakunin said he succeeded in creating a factory that will produce products which will meet the needs of the modern man.
"We have built a modern factory for the production of organic and inorganic products, teas and homeopathic medicines of good quality and with competitive prices," said Yakunin and thanked the Prime Minister and the Macedonian Government for its unreserved support during the realisation of the project.
Protek Group is one of the largest pharmaceutical holdings in Russia which is engaged in the production, distribution and trade of medicine and cosmetics. The company employs 12,000 people and has an annual turnover of four billion dollars.