EBRD is boosting Romania's presence in the global aerospace industry

The EBRD is boosting Romania's presence in the global aerospace industry with a loan of €25 million to the Romanian Universal Alloy Corporation Europe SRL (UACE) that will concentrate a significant part of the group's production of metal aircraft components within Romania. 

The EBRD funding will be used to support the development of the machined parts business, surface treatment and assembly operations in Dumbravita in  the north of Romania, thus increasing the efficiency of UACE's operations, increasing the added value output and making a significant contribution to enhancing local engineering skills.  

UACE will be able to provide aircraft manufacturers, such as Airbus/EADS, Alenia and Boeing, with locally produced metal structure parts, as opposed to shipping unprocessed components to third-party machinists in Europe. 

All three major steps of the production process - casting, extrusion and machining - will be concentrated in Romania. This will strengthen the local knowledge base and help to close the technology gap.  

"With UACE's knowledge and expertise and the support of the EBRD, Romania will meet the strict requirements of the high-tech industry, an important step for it to become part of the global aerospace market”, said Claudia Pendred, EBRD Director for Romania. 

"The demand for aircraft parts is likely to rise with the growth of the air transport industry that is expected to continue by almost 5 per cent per annum over the next 15 to 20 years globally, according to the largest aerospace manufacturers. This will maintain strong demand for new aircraft and consequently also for the aluminium parts produced by UACE over the medium to long term,” said John Ball, CEO of UACE.  

UACE is part of the aerospace division of the Swiss-Austrian industrial group Montana Tech Components AG, one of the world's four major producers of metal aerospace parts.