A company that started only 3 years ago in the city of Strășeni, Moldova, with a team of 4 people, is now producing components that are found in cars like Dacia, Renault, Nissan, Peugeot, Opel, Jaguar, Land Rover, but also in Dufour Yachts and in camping equipment used by Defence Industry.
Now it takes a team of 70 people, but the factory is already prepared for future growth of up to 120 workers. Whetec may be the best example of how a small investment in the automotive sector of Moldova works, since it is the smallest of the investments done in the last 10 years in any other factory that uses Free Economic Zones status.
It all started in 2017 when the French group T Concept was prospecting a region for a new factory they intended to build. They contacted local chambers of commerce responsible for French relations in Romania and Moldova. Moldova proved to be faster in response, and the officials there took the lead in helping the French investor to get the information they needed and put them in contact with the right management team. The same chamber of commerce had contacts of the Moldovan students that made their studies at universities in France. Alexandru Magnet was one of them when he got the message that a French investor is looking for the right people willing to be a part of the future project, so he took action. A period of analysis, calculations and business plans followed. They took then the decision to proceed with their plans and chose the then-new Straseni branch of the Free Economic Zone of Bălți.
Location was still full of debris, but, looking at the good example of other FEZ regions in Moldova, they trusted the authorities plans to ensure a transformation of the region and take care of the infrastructure.
A 400,000-euro investment
The started operation in 2018, with an initial staff of 4 and an overall investment of 400,000 euros. It was more of a period of setting up the factory, and then they started to hire more people for the operation at the assembly lines. And, as stated, today, their staff accounts for 70 people.
Almost always, the final client is not the manufacturer itself but OEM suppliers to manufacturers.
Usually, Whetec’s cables and sensors become part of an entire module, which an OEM then supplies to the manufacturer on the assembly line.
Cables and sensors are not just for the automotive industry
The small company in Strășeni is also delivering cables and sensors to agricultural components, especially to John Deere. Last year, amid the most critical moments of the pandemic in France, they delivered electric systems for camp hospitals and temporary caring facilities used by Defence Industry to help the medical staff to cope with the pandemic. All their products go to France, with weekly trucks loading and delivering the products to the parent company in France. The raw material is also sourced from France. The Free Economic Zone status allows the company to fast-track deliveries of raw materials without importing them as such and then exporting the final product with the same fast-track so that within a couple of days from the moment the product leaves the factory in Moldova, it can arrive in France. For the local community, Whetec is an attractive employer thanks to decent wages and a standard operating program in one shift, which attracts people who would otherwise not be able to switch for a night of late evening shifts. For their clients, Whetec is the smaller company they can rely on when they need smaller parties of specific products when they need to cover a sudden rise in demand when they need someone flexible, even if they work on a long-term contract basis.
Their path of growth is a bit delayed now because of the global chip shortage, which delays many orders for cars and, subsequently for cables and sensors they need to make. It is usually a delay in time, which spreads the expected volume for a longer period and does the same with the growth the company is targeting. But anyway, with the current staff, Whetec is operating at its full capacity, so they are confident that their growth plans will be adjusted in the timeframe when they are implemented, not in their scale.
So, what is Whetec producing in Moldova? They manufacture cables and sensors mainly, and not only for cars. They produce electric cable for almost every vehicle type you can imagine. The list includes gas sensors used mainly in car engines. They also plan to start the production of fluid sensors as a way of expanding their business even more. Dacia Duster has its sensors installed, Peugeot 3008 and other models from the brands mentioned above. In the case of the 3008, for example, Whetec Moldova is manufacturing all the wires and sensors for the rear bumper and all the electronics on it.
