GLS establishes start-up in Romania

GLS Romania went into operation on August 1st. Headquartered in Sibiu, the new subsidiary will be headed by Gabor Szemkeo, Managing Director GLS Europe East. The investment volume amounts to five million euros.

GLS will offer a national regular delivery time of 24 hours in Rumania: full-area distribution will be achieved by the hub in Sibiu as well as ten depots in Sibiu, Brasov, Pitesti, Bucuresti (Bucharest), Targu Mures, Cluj Napoca, Baia Mare, Oradea, Timisoara and Deva.

The start-up company is linked to GLS’ European network via regular line haul transports to the Austrian hub in Ansfelden and the Hungarian hub in Budapest. “From our European transhipment centre in Neuenstein, Germany, the hub for our international line haul transports, we are able to realize a regular delivery time of 72 hours for Rumanian import parcels”, explains Rico Back, CEO at GLS B.V., Amsterdam.

Following the growth markets

GLS already has experience in establishing start-up companies in growth markets: already a year before its entry into the EU, GLS Hungary was a hundred per cent subsidiary of the GLS Group. In May 2004, GLS Slovakia was launched; in April 2005, GLS Czech Republic began its operations. “We want to be present for our customers in eastern European EU markets to meet the increase in demand”, says Back. “Establishing our own companies has proven to be a successful strategy. We are able to achieve GLS’ high quality objectives in the first few weeks of operations and the break even point usually already in the second year.”