QCOSTARICA – MABE, the Mexican appliance manufacturer announced today, Friday, it will be moving its manufacturing from Costa Rica to Colombia and the layoff of 445 employees.
Pablo Moreno, director of Corporate Affairs at MABE, said the decision to close the Los Lagos de Heredia was not an easy one, but based on changes in technical standards in some Central America and Caribbean countries, which will take effect next year.
Moreno explained, “these standards establish technical requirements and, in this case, regulate the consumption of electricity and will be tightened next year. The units must meet certain measures and to continue producing them in Costa Rica, it was required to make a major change in the design of the product and the production line.”
Moreno said that the units that meet these conditions are already been manufactured in other countries, including Colombia. The transfer of the Costa Rica operations to Colombia will be effective as of January 31, 2016.
The Heredia refrigerator plant had a production capacity of 275,000 units a year, all for export to Central America.
In the past 19 months MABE has reduced its production in Costa Rica, in May 2014 ending production stoves, and the letting go of 350 people.
MABE began operations in Costa Rica in 2008 with the acquisition of the local appliance manufacturer Atlas Electric, a Costa Rican company founded in the 1960s.
MABE joins a list of more than 20 companies to move out of Costa Rica in the last two years.
Source: Elfinancierocr.com
