Hisense to expand Gorenje's manufacturing operations

Consistently with the development plans for the Gorenje Group, the construction of two new factories are planned for the next two years. In Velenje, a factory will be built for manufacturing Hisense brand TV sets, while Gorenje Valjevo will expand its production capacity and with additional manufacturing halls to become a centre for Hisense Group's refrigeration technology in Europe. Preparations for the construction of the new TV set factory in Velenje are underway. The next step is to file the building permit application; the factory is scheduled for opening at the end of next year. “We intended to complete the first stage of construction next autumn and initially make approximately one million TV appliances per year. In the next stage, we are planning to increase the output capacity to 4 million TV sets annually (by 2023),” a press release reads. The company says that between 300 and 400 new jobs will be created in the first stage; in the second stage, the factory is expected to employ one thousand people. The investment is valued at several dozen million euros. TV appliances from our factory will be mostly intended for the European market. At the same time the company has planned an expansion of production at Gorenje Valjevo where the existing refrigeration appliance factory currently has 1,500 employees, and their last year's output reached 672,000 units. After the relocation of the remaining production line of built-in refrigerators from Velenje to Valjevo the output capacity will increase by 150,000 appliances per year. “In the future, we intend to build an additional cold appliance factory that will employ up to 1,000 more employees and increase the output capacity by extra 750,000 units per year already in the first stage. This will include combined fridge freezers and side-by-side appliances. With the expansion, Gorenje Valjevo will become Hisense Group's centre for refrigeration technology in Europe,” the company writes.