Nearly 500 people worked there: 401 workers and 85 employees. The activities should partly be transferred to the other Belgian sites of Vive-Saint-Bavon (Sint-Baafs-Vijve) and Vive-Saint-Éloi (Sint-Eloois-Vijve). Investments will also take place in the first of these two sites to create a central logistics centre.
About half of the workers in Avelgem, a town located not far from the linguistic border, between Kortrijk and Tournai, will be able to continue working for Balta Rugs on the other two Belgian sites.
Displaced activities
Part of the activities will indeed be moved there, while the rest of the activity will be transferred to U? ak, in Turkey. The company cites the difficult economic context, with structurally rising costs that particularly affect the yarn department, to justify this concentration on two sites instead of three.
Balta Rugs, however, assures that it continues to believe in the production of yarns and carpets in Belgium and will, to do this, invest 14 million euros in order to increase and modernize the logistics capacity of the Vive-Saint-Bavon site in order to create a central distribution center for Balta Rugs in Europe. Additional investments will also be made on the existing site of U? ak (Turkey).
Clarity
Balta Rugs emphasizes that this is still an intention at this time and its ambition is to deliver clarity to everyone as quickly as possible. Social negotiations, within the framework of the Renault law on collective redundancies, should soon open.
Balta Industries is a producer of textile floor coverings and sells its products in more than 130 countries worldwide. It employs more than 2,500 people in eight production sites and distribution centers in Belgium, Turkey and the United States. Since last April, this company is no longer part of Balta Group, the listed company.