WEG has also announced plans to invest R$48m ($10m) over the next three years to expand production at its motors plant in Manaus, Brazil, and to adapt the site to produce a new line of permanent magnet electric motors for split-type air conditioners. The 5,250m² factory already produces around 3.5 million motors a year. Following the investments, its workforce will increase by 25%.
Turkey is a key market for WEG’s motors and drives business and the new expansion will tap into the expanding Turkish industrial sector, which represents more than 30% of the country’s GDP. The facility, which began operating last year, will also enable WEG to expand its low- and medium-voltage motors activities.
“The local assembly line and warehouse expansion will help us better understand the market demand and needs of our customers,” explains WEG Turkey’s executive managing director, Marco Antonio Campos. “We’ve been present in the Turkish market for years thanks to our partners and we know the region offers great potential for our motion drive solutions.
“The expansion will create opportunities for the local community, creating jobs, development, and opportunities for the local suppliers,” he adds. “In the future, WEG will likely expand even further to meet our business growth and local verticalisation plans.”
WEG’s new plant in Turkey will also serve the wider region
The expanded Brazilian factory will produce high-efficiency, low-noise variable-speed motors.
“This investment marks an important advance for the air-conditioning segment in Brazil, bringing an evolution to the air-conditioning devices used in homes, offices and commercial spaces,” says Julio Cesar Ramires, managing director of WEG’s Commercial and Appliance Business. The motors will offer more economical, silent and reliable operation, he adds, “which will bring more thermal comfort to users, as well as a more sustainable operation as a whole.”
