Portuguese manufacturer of plastic components for the automotive industry Soplast expects its planned factory in Serbia’s northern city of Backa Topola to be fully operational in the first quarter of 2026, CEO Henrique Rezio told SeeNews on Friday.
in See News, interview by Valentina Bajic, 24-02-2025
“Our strategic plan defined innovation and internationalisation, among others, as our short-term objectives. This investment in Serbia comes […], to allow us to geographically cover other markets in the region and follow the trends of our customers,” Rezio said in an emailed interview with SeeNews.
Soplast currently works on the design and construction projects for the Backa Topola factory and plans to start commercial production at the facility in the middle of 2026, he said. The plant in Serbia will be Soplast’s maiden investment outside Portugal and it is expected to have around 50 jobs when in full swing, Rezio said but declined to disclose the value of the investment in the project.
“Our production capacity will be focused on plastic injection moulding technologies with sub-assembly operations to manufacture high standard technical components,” Rezio said of the Backa Topola facility, noting that products manufactured in Serbia will be marketed not only internationally but also domestically, focusing on sectors such as automotive industry, construction, home appliances, telecommunications, and energy.
Soplast currently exports its products to Spain, France, Germany, Poland, and Romania and supplies automotive manufacturers like Stellantis, Renault, Nissan, Volvo, Ford and BMW, according to Rezio.
In 2025, Soplast anticipates its revenue to remain at the 2024 level of 9.2 million euro ($9.6 million), the CEO said.
Asked about the reasons for choosing Serbia for its investment, Rezio explained: “The geographical location and the technical specialisation of the teams were definitely key points but we added other values such as the excellent communication and willingness to support from the Serbian public entities when dealing with a foreign investment with these characteristics and also the strong supply chain of partners in the region.”
Headquartered in Valongo, northern Portugal, Soplast is a family-owned business whose history dates back to 1980. In 2016, a fire destroyed Soplast’s only production facility located in Valongo. Just over a year later, the company opened a new factory in the city.
Following the accident, “we managed to fully recover the company’s activity in a few years, solidify our operations with a technologically advanced factory,” Rezio said.
($ = 0.951 euro)
