First 100 pct Romanian tractor, launched by IRUM Reghin, designed by company's engineers

IRUM Reghin is launching this fall, the year of the Greater Union's Centennial, the first 100 pct Romanian tractor, designed and made by the company's engineers, 15 years from the disappearance of the Romanian tractors' production, on Friday announced Mircea Oltean, the company's managing director.

"We have decided to enter the agricultural area, to be more specific we have decided to enter the market with an agricultural tractor. If the people saw us as a forestry tractors and equipment manufacturer, currently, after 9 years [since we started the TAG tractors manufacturing under Belarus licence, ed. n.] people already see us in the same measure as an agricultural equipment producer. And since we are celebrating the Centennial, we are to launch this fall the first 100 pct Romanian tractor, designed and made exclusively by our team of talented engineers, after 15 years since the vanishing of the Romanian tractors' production," Mircea Oltean told a news conference.

According to the IRUM managing director, the tractors' manufacturing will kick off next year, 500 units being due for production at Reghin in a first stage, in parallel with the ones made under Belarus licence, and the two types of tractors will be complementary, meaning they will be different types with different horse power (HP).

The zero series of the Romanian tractors has passed the testing phase already, and IRUM will manufacture tractors ranging from 85 to 105 HP in the first stage.

The new tractor will be promoted under the "Romanian tractors" slogan with over 80 pct of its components made in Romania.

The IRUM Reghin leadership specified that these will not be low cost tractors, since they will be world-wide high-performance equipment.

"There are certain specific elements wherein it is better to enter a collaboration with a traditional manufacturer than trying to invent the wheel, such as Perkins, that for over 80 years has been dealing with engines. We are talking of a Romanian tractor, of Romanian design, but there are certain components for which we have found external collaborators so as to make a competitive product on the world market. (...) An integrated plant such as IRUM - with a foundry, forging, mechanical processing workshop, welding, metallic constructions, assembly lines - it is hard to find in the Western countries. In general, there are companies that have a product and are looking for collaborators, we are an exception to the rule so far, functioning like this. And yet it is very hard to supervise so many areas and then, there are the partners involved," Mircea Oltean said.

The Romanian tractor made by IRUM Reghin will be officially presented at the most important agricultural event in Romania, INDAGRA, organized by ROMEXPO together with the Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Romania, from 31 October to 4 November.

In September 2016, the Romanian forestry articulated tractors' manufacturer SC IRUM SA Reghin, an exclusively Romanian company, launched three new forestry equipment: TAF 2012 G, TAF 4F GT by LOGSET and IFRON POWERSHIFT - two of which being exclusively conceived by the Reghin-based company's engineers and manufactured there.

IRUM Reghin inaugurated in September 2015, the first R&D centre for agricultural and forestry equipment of Romania, the iFOR, following an almost 12 million lei investment, the first equipment manufactured here being TAF 2012 G and IFRON POWERSHIFT, and now when turning 65 years of activity, it is launching the new Romanian agricultural tractors.

IRUM Reghin was established in 1953 and became a fully private company in 1999 when the Maviprod company (that is turning 25) has taken it over and maintained its main activity object, by manufacturing machinery and equipment for the forestry industry. Subsequently, IRUM was upgraded, kicked off a collaboration with Perkins company, extended its production lines and founded Romania's first private research centre in machinery and equipment.AGERPRES(RO - author: Dorina Matis, editor: Diana Dumitru; EN - author: Maria Voican, editor: Simona Iacob)