Ficosa has opened its first facility in Africa a production centre in Rabat, Morocco. The plant will be the company’s Centre of Excellence in Cameras, and will be used to develop vision systems and electric cable sets, as well as traditional products for the local market including rearview mirrors, shifter systems and washer systems.
The 12,000m² plant has been established at a cost of 50m (US$62m). The company says it could be expanded to 17,000m². It will employ roughly 700 people and is expected to post a yearly turnover of 150m (US$185m) by 2022.
“Opening our first plant in Morocco is an important milestone for the company, as it allows us to land for the first time ever on the continent of Africa,” said Javier Pujol (above), CEO at Ficosa.
“We are strongly committed to these facilities, having made them our Centre of Excellence in Cameras. They will be a strategic part of the group, bolstering the Viladecavalls Technology Centre (Barcelona, Spain), the company’s global hub for new technologies in vision, connectivity, safety and efficiency for connected and driverless vehicles and e-mobility.”
Founded in 1949, Ficosa currently has more than 10,500 employees in production plants, commercial offices, technical centres and R&D centres in 19 countries in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa. The company posted revenue of 1.169bn (US$1.4bn) in 2016.
Since 2015, Ficosa maintains an alliance with Panasonic, which holds 69% of the company, to accelerate the development of key technologies for the future of the automotive sector in the fields of vision, connectivity, driverless vehicles, safety and e-mobility.