Daikin Europe will invest 300 million euro ($A445.79 million) to establish a new factory in Poland, which will be Daikin’s first production base in the country.
The new factory will manufacture residential heat pump units and start operations in July 2024, in addition to the existing European production bases in Belgium, the Czech Republic and Germany.
This investments come on top of the 840 million euro ($A1.24 billion) set out in Daikin Europe’s strategic management plan FUSION 25, announced last year, and new investments in existing factories. This brings Daikin Europe’s total investment amount to over 1.2 billion euro ($A1.78 billion) by 2025.
Daikin considers Europe to be a top priority region for expanding its heat pump heating business in FUSION 25.
Toshitaka Tsubouchi, president of Daikin Europe said the company has taken up the challenge to facilitate the shift from fossil fuel boilers to heat pumps.
“To this end, we have been strengthening our product development and service capabilities, and now decided to establish a new factory in Poland,” he said.
“This factory will have the largest capacity in the Daikin Europe Group in terms of heat pump heating output. With this investment we aim to achieve the No.1 market share in each of the major countries.’
Hiromitsu Iwasaki, vice president of Daikin Europe said Poland is a country with a large number of skilled workers and the new factory will employ 1,000 people by 2025.
“Our efforts will enable us to produce four times the current volume by 2025, and create a production system with a stable supply to a rapidly growing market,” he said.
“With this new factory, we continue our proximity strategy, meaning that all heating products sold in Europe are also manufactured in Europe.”