The French-German conglomerate Saint-Gobain Weber will build a factory for mortar and paste-like coatings off Kostinbrod, in southern Bulgaria, Petar Kosmev, marketing director at the Bulgarian arm of the company, told Dnevnik daily on February 28.

The company will invest five million euro in the project, which would be completed within six months. The factory will be built from scratch and the first sod will be turned on March 6. The new production complex will spread over three hectares and will host production facilities, a warehouse, an administrative building and maintenance facilities.

The capacity of the plant will be 100 000 tonnes of building materials a year. The new factory will provide 40 new jobs. Output of the new factory will be sold on the domestic market and will use only local raw materials.

The French company operates on the Bulgarian market since 2001, through its Saint-Gobain Weber Terranova subsidiary. In 2004, the company set up a Bulgarian, Saint Gobain Bulgaria.

Saint-Gobain, operating since 1665, has representative offices in 54 countries, employing more than 200 000 people. Its revenues in January-September last year stood at 3.26 billion euro.