With over 153,000 people owing their jobs to KIA Motors Europe, the South Korean manufacturer contributed €934 million in taxes to European governments in 2014.
These numbers come straight out of a new report published by London Economics, a leading independent European economic consultancy. They found that the €934 million paid to governments included custom duties, sales and corporation taxes and that it ended up supporting the region’s economic growth.
That figure alone went up by almost 8% compared to 2013, when KIA paid €865 million in taxes to European governments.
KIA’s Žilina plant produced its first vehicle at the end of 2006 and most recently, its two millionth in 2015. The entire facility (operated by KIA Motors Slovakia) is one of the few factories in the world capable of manufacturing up to eight different models on the same production line. In fact, initial production at the Žilina concentrated around the cee’d almost a decade ago. Now, in 2015, it was the Sportage that made up 58% of annual production at the plant.
Over the 2013-2014 period, output rose at the plant by 3.5%, which meant that the total value of supplies purchased by KIA’s European manufacturing operation stood at €4.3 billion in 2014 – about 71% of these supplies, worth €3.0 billion, were sourced from within Europe.
Also in 2014, 56% of all KIA vehicles sold in Europe were manufacturer locally in Slovakia.
The London Economics report also highlights KIA’s entire European value chain, from R&D to manufacturing, supplies, sales and distribution, which itself added €1.3 billion to European GDP, while the company’s total gross value added (GVA), added a further €2.5 billion.
Even though we don’t have KIA’s contribution numbers for 2015 in this report, it’s safe to say that business is booming.
PHOTO GALLERY
