Bosch Portugal wants a new factory in the country

  • ECO News
  • 16 March 2017

Bosch's Portuguese representative aims to be the front runner when it comes to national exports. In order to do so, he stated "Bosch must allow us to build a major factory" - but it will not be easy.

“No one sells Portugal like I do”. This is how Carlos Ribas, Bosch’s representative in Portugal, says he will fight to bring to Portugal a giant factory from one of Germany’s greatest companies.

Bosh Portugal has three factories functioning in the country: Aveiro (250 km north from Lisbon) holds the production of hot water solutions; in Ovar (286 km north from Lisbon), the electronic surveillance systems; and Bosh Car in Braga (362 km north from Lisbon), which accounts for 65% of the group’s invoicing and supplies electronic displays for brands such as Rolls Royce, Jaguar or BMW.

Last year, we invested around 100 million and this year, we will invest around the same amount.

Carlos Ribas

Bosch Portugal

In his interview to ECO, Carlos Ribas explained that, due to those three factories and many new projects, Bosh Portugal was able to end last year with a business volume which surpassed one billion euros. Ribas’ goal is to grow 50% and for that aim, he intends to invest in the expansion of the factories in Ovar and Braga, namely in infrastructures to increase production. Carlos Ribas states: “With this rise in production we will proportionally increase our business volume; by the end of 2018, I would like to be invoicing between 1.5 and 1.7 billion euros”.

Bosh needs another factory to get to the top one; we already have three… we just need another one.

Carlos Ribas

Bosch Portugal

Carlos Ribas has another goal: to grow enough to become the leader of Portuguese exports. “We will be the leaders of national exports when Bosh allows us to build another factory in Portugal. It’s not easy, because we are running against countries that offer benefits the EU does not allow us to give. And, therefore, we need to prove our skills are significantly better than the benefits other countries offer”, states the representative of Bosh Portugal. Yet, Carlos Ribas does not believe that Bosh, the parent company, will make that decision in the short term.

Bosh Portugal is currently between “the fifth and sixth place in Portugal” in terms of exports, even if 95% of its production is sent abroad: “95% of the products from Bosh Portugal stay in Europe (20% in England and 25% in Central Europe, namely Germany) and around 2% go to the United States, 5% to Turkey and another 2% go to Asia”, states Carlos Ribas.