DellPoland
The European Commission is giving Dell another €54.5m in
regional aid money to expand a PC-making plant in Poland.
The move comes just days after it gave the US PC maker €14.8m to
help it find
new jobs for 2,840 Irish workers made redundant when it shifted
production of mobile PCs from Limerick to Asia.
Dell plans to make desktops, notebooks and servers which is
expected to create up to 3 000 direct jobs in the Łódzkie region.
The existing €190m plant Łódź (Poland) opened in January 2008 and
currently employs 1 700.
The
decision follows a formal investigation into the investment in
December 2008. The Commission found the Lodz project "will
significantly contribute to the regional development of the Łódzkie
region and that these benefits outweigh any potential negative
effects of the aid on competition and trade", said competition
commissioner Neelie Kroes.
This was the commission first in-depth assessment of regional
aid to a large investment project.
The commission found that the aid provided an incentive for Dell
to locate its manufacturing plant in Łódź by compensating for less
favourable investment conditions in comparison with another
envisaged location in Eastern Europe. The aid covered the net extra
costs of locating the plant in Łódź, it said.
The commission also found that the aid would not crowd out
competitors or create significant production capacity in an
underperforming market (desktops) since the plant would have been
built regardless of the aid, but elsewhere.
The commission said that Dell's job losses in Ireland were not a
consequence of the aid granted by the Polish authorities.