KTD Group, which manufactures household appliances in Ukraine under the Saturn, ST and Laretti brands, plans to launch the conveyed assembly of refrigerators at a factory in Cherkasy in one or two months, President of the KTD Group Oleksandr Hromyko has said. “We have already launched the pilot manufacture of refrigerators, and in a month or two we are launching an assembly line for 300,000 refrigerators per year. We buy metal from Metinvest,” Hromyko said at a round table on labor migration issues in Kyiv on Tuesday . As was earlier reported, the initial launch of the plant with a gradual increase in output to 300,000 refrigerators annually was scheduled for the summer of 2017, but the deadline was shifted for 2018. Hromyko explained the time was needed to change the project for the incorporation of energy-saving technologies, as the plant is to manufacture A++ and A+++ energy-saving refrigerators.
Then the launch was rescheduled due to the need to resolve all emerging technical issues, especially considering the complexity of production.
Earlier, Hromyko said that Ukrainian manufacturers could replace Chinese factories for European companies, since locating production facilities in Ukraine reduces delivery periods and avoids duties due to the free trade zone with the EU.
“What we lack and what we saw, for example, in Slovakia or Turkey, is certainly the support of the manufacturer by the government. In Slovakia, for example, if I had opened a similar plant and created 500 jobs, I would have had from 30% to 50% of the cost of equipment compensated,” he said during the round table.
KTD Group has been working in the home appliances market for over 20 years. It is a major supplier of household appliances of various brands in the European market, and produces some of its goods at factories in China, Turkey and Taiwan. According to its website, during this period, offices were opened in 13 countries, namely in the United Arab Emirates and Tunisia.
The Dragon Capital investment company estimated the group’s share in the Ukrainian market of household appliances at 14%.
In 2009, KTD Group opened a Kupava semi-automatic washing machine plant in Kaniv. Then the plant’s assortment was expanded to produce various small appliances under the Saturn trademark. The group’s second plant is located in Cherkasy, where convectors, heaters, electric furnaces are produced.
In Ukraine, the largest producer of refrigerators was the Nord plant in Donetsk, which had to stop in 2016 as it was unable to work in the occupied area in eastern Ukraine, and it started manufacturing refrigerators to China.
