G&D relocates its production from Germany to Slovakia

This new facility will cover the whole spectrum of card applications: mobile communications, electronic payment, health care, identification, and IT security. Besides embedding, it will also have a SIM card personalization workshop and customized logistics and packaging services. This new factory will be fed by activities that have been transferred from Louisenthal, Germany. The employees from Louisenthal factory have spent months training the new workers in Nitra, Slovakia. Even now, around two dozens Germans are based in Nitra factory, helping for the start of the production. G&D management says wages in Slovakia amount to a quarter of those of their counterparts in Germany. "We can achieve necessary savings only here", stress Karsten Ottenberg, chairman of the management. He said social measures have been planned to help the German workers after the closure of Louisenthal plant.

This movement is justified by G&D management as a response to the falling prices of smart cards, especially in the GSM field. G&D says all measures have been undertaken to guarantee the level of reliability, quality and security will be comparable to previous activities in Louisenthal, and the new factory respects all Slovakian government requirements in terms of environmental protection and occupational health and safety. Personalization, development, and marketing, will remain based in Germany for the time being.