H. Essers, a European company operating in the field of transport and logistics, is expanding its business in Moldova. The company's management team investigated and consulted through the Belgian Luxembourg Romanian Moldovan Chamber of Commerce, with Investment Agency's specialists, and decided to make an investment in the ICT sector.
The Belgian company was founded by Henri Essers in 1928 and now operates in 19 countries, with over 85 locations and about 7,000 employees. In 2019, it reported an assets turnover of 746 million euros, owning a fleet of 1440 trucks and warehouses with an area of 1,300,000 square meters.
H. Essers has been present in the Republic of Moldova since 2008, and in 2014 set up a BPO office in our country, outlining the image of a reliable partner. The company has teams in the IT sector from several countries , and now it has decided to create a team in the Republic of Moldova that will work for the development of the company's internal software in the field of transport and logistics, together with other specialists from Belgium.
Daniela Vicol, Country Manager Moldova said that H. Essers decided to invest in the Republic of Moldova noting its success in the IT services export, an incentive being the fact that many companies in Belgium have recently focused their investments on strategic sectors in the Republic of Moldova.
"The decision to expand in the Republic of Moldova is a great success and a possibility to create a strong IT team that will strenghten the IT sector. Currently, at the company's headquarters in Belgium, the workload is growing considerably and finding IT specialists becomes a real challenge. Respectively, once the question where to find qualified IT specialists arised, the answer was obvious: in the Republic of Moldova, because here we already have a subsidiary with a good reputation, H. Essers Moldova, and the company's representatives are totally convinced of the talent and the skills of our specialists. Further on we attended a webinar together with the Investment Agency, and as a result, the investors decided that it really worths to expand in our country. We are at the recruitment stage having three open positions for specialists. We are now interviewing the first candidates, after which they will have interviews with the technical specialists from Belgium ”.
In the last four years, the IT industry in the Republic of Moldova has quadrupled the ICT products and services exports volume and exceeded in 2019 5 billion lei. Also, IT exports increased 3 times - from 1.1 billion lei in 2015, to 3.5 billion lei in 2019, considerably exceeding traditionally exported products, such as wines, by over 400 million lei .
Rodica Verbeniuc, General Manager of the Investment Agency: "The agency aims to provide as many platforms as possible for direct interaction with potential foreign investors, through which we promote not only the investment potential and benefits of the country, but also facilitate the decision-making process of starting a business in Moldova. Our country has a gainful telecommunications infrastructure, with a mobile penetration of over 100% and a presence of the fiber optic network of 98.2%. This is a strong argument for the development of the IT, BPO, SSC sectors that generate value-added services for the national economy and supports the employment and motivation of talented young people. "
Currently, in the Republic of Moldova there are 2,300 companies in the IT sector, employing over 29,600 people, serving mainly European and American markets. They are focused mainly on several industries, especially in government, banking and telecommunications. This sphere ensures the highest salary level in the economy.