Lithuania: Kinze Manufacturing Inc., an Iowa- based maker of farm machinery, will open it’s first factory outside the U.S.

Kinze Manufacturing Inc., an Iowa- based maker of farm machinery, will open it's first factory outside the U.S. in Lithuania this year to support expansion in central and eastern Europe.

The Baltic plant is geared to increasing sales in Russia, Ukraine and the whole of the European Union, Kinze Vice President Susanne Veatch said today in a joint statement e- mailed by Lithuania's investment agency in Vilnius. Important EU markets include the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Hungary, she said.

Kinze, which says it's the U.S.'s second-biggest producer of planting and seeding equipment, this autumn will start an assembly line at a site near Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. By 2017, it will build up to full manufacturing with a staff of 250 beginning in 2017, according to the statement.

Lithuania is seeking to attract more investments in the field of mechanical engineering to develop a modern metalworking and equipment manufacturing cluster for eastern European markets, Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius said in the statement.

Bloomberg

Related Articles:

World: The future of “Golden rice”

Fourteen years ago, scientists developed a genetically engineered version of rice that would promote the production of v

EU: Stats about EU agriculture

Which Member States are the biggest producers of wheat, maize or barley? How much cow’s milk is collected by dairies

EBRD has signed its first deal with a Turkish primary agriculture production company

Five years after the beginning of its operations in Turkey, the EBRD has signed its first deal with a Turkish primary ag

Cash crisis hits EU’s farm policy reform

European Union politicians will scale back or ditch reforms to the farm subsidy system as they seek to mollify powerful