Scania Argentina announced a new investment of
27 million dollars
, of which US$ 18 million will be allocated to its factory in Tucumán and the other $9 million to its dealer network.
"The investment of 18 million dollars in our Tucumán plant consists of
new equipment
, with machines for the production of gears with a new carbon fiber coating," said
Oscar Jaern
, who since May of last year has been the new CEO. of the Argentine subsidiary of Scania.
The subsidiary has
1,200 employees
, of whom 600 work in the factory located in the Tucuman town of
Colombres
and another 600 work in the dealer network, 28 in total, of which
half are directly owned by Scania.
The Swedish brand is
part of the Volkswagen group and is synonymous with
large trucks
around the world
.
But in the case of Argentina, many years ago the Tucumán plant
stopped assembling vehicles
to concentrate its activity on the
manufacture of gears and gearboxes
, which
they export
mainly to
Brazil
(95%) and
Sweden
(5%).
With this new investment, which its directors described as "a preparation for
the new technologies that are coming
", the expectation is to start exporting the gearboxes to new markets, within the "heavy" brands of the Traton group, where there is also
Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, MAN and Navistar.
"Within this group, more and more, we are working with an integrated production system to achieve better production quality, to achieve synergies, greater efficiencies and also to be able to balance what is the production of different parts of the world, depending on the of the ups and downs that there may be," explained Jaern, a Swedish executive who lived in Buenos Aires as a teenager and is married to an Argentine.
Oscar Jaern, CEO of Scania Argentina.
In Spanish with an impeccable
Buenos Aires accent
, during a meeting with journalists, Jaern added that the expectation of this new investment, which will be carried out this year but whose new products will be on the market in 2024, "is to export not only to Brazil and Sweden, but also to to other countries and brands of the group" and detailed as possible new destinations "
Asian and North American
markets ".
The rest of the investment, for nine million dollars, will be destined to reinforce the tooling of the dealerships, in particular to serve Scania's
CNG-powered buses
, which are now also equipped with auxiliary or "backpack" tanks. to increase their autonomy.
"Nine million dollars is
not a minor
amount and we are allocating it to important concessionaires that we have in cities like Mendoza, San Juan, Tucumán and Mar del Plata, among others," said the executive.
Scania comes from exporting 37,000 differentials and 38,000 transmission cases during 2022, for a total of
185 million dollars
, while
it imported 1,400 trucks
over the past year."We anticipate that this year will be similar to last year, for us. This
It is a complex year, with elections, with the drought
, but still we understand that it will be similar to last year," added Jaern.
-Do you have the Government's guarantee that you will be able to import the raw material necessary for the new technologies?
he asked.
-Well, the investment
is already insured
with the different mechanisms that exist.
This is a somewhat complex issue, due to the difficulties we have
, mainly regarding the use of foreign currency.
But we have a constructive dialogue with the Government to be able to carry out this investment, which has the objective of generating employment and generating exports.
So it is an issue that goes hand in hand and the objectives that the country has.
