Legero to expand Romanian factory

Rudolf Hampl, head of Austrian shoe producer Legero, announced plans to enlarge the firm’s production facilities in Romania.The company, whose headquarters are in Graz, started to relocate its production from Austria to Romania, India, Vietnam, China, Indonesia and Italy in 1993 due to financial reasons.Now Hampl said the plan was to become even more active in their plant in the Romanian town of Valea lui Mihai where workers manufacture 50 per cent of all of the company’s shoes.The firm head said today (Tues): “We want to continue keeping the majority of our production in Europe and not focus on Asia any further.”Hampl explained Legero decided to stop production in neighbouring Hungary due to rising wages and the revaluation of the national currency Forint.Legero is market leader for children’s shoes in Austria with a share of around 30 per cent. Around one in five pairs of kids shoes sold in Germany are Legero products too.The company – in which German shoe firm Ara holds a 49.9 per cent stake – produces around three million pairs of shoes a year which are sold in 23 countries.”We recovered well from the crisis,” Hampl said, adding that the goal was to increase annual turnover by 16 per cent to 133.6 million Euros this year.