Nidec Corporation would invest EUR1.5bn euro ($1.8bn) to build an automotive electric motor and inverter factory in Novi Sad, in northern Serbia, a media report said.

“In the first phase alone, Nidec will employ 480 people and their income will be significantly higher than the average in Serbia,” Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic said after meeting with Nidec officials in Belgrade on Friday, according to a statement quoted by SeeNews.com.

Construction is scheduled to begin in September with completion by mid-2022, the company said in a separate statement.

The factory will have a 59,760 sq m factory for the motors and a 36,000 sq m plant for inverters. They will initially employ 1,000 and 200 people, respectively, SeeNews said.

The factory will be one of the company’s largest in Europe with an annual output of between 200,000 and 300,000 units by 2023, Nikkei reported in November.

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"While the company's multiple businesses will be operated at the same sites to seek synergies by sharing the same production infrastructure and back-office, the new business bases will engage in, among others, supplying products to the European market, while looking to design and develop products locally in Serbia, a country abundant in people in the fields of science and engineering who are fluent in English," Nidec reportedly said in a statement.

SeeNews noted Nidec opened an office in Novi Sad on 8 April and has agreed a strategic alliance with the University of Novi Sad for technology exchanges via industry-academia partnership.

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