MJ Systems, a UK company which produces containers for several transport industry giants, has set up operations in Plungė, a town in Western Lithuania. The company plans to invest almost €100,000 over the next three years and create about 50 jobs.

“When a new investment plan was developed, we considered Lithuania alongside Romania and the UK,” said John Tariq Marfani, the Director of MJ Systems. “We chose Lithuania because we had already had some positive experiences with the car industry here; we are very impressed by the professional work ethic and enthusiasm. We also consider it important that the country is near our major markets in Western Europe as this makes the logistics costs competitive.”





In Plungė, the company will manufacture container systems for transporting different vehicle components. The container systems are engineered to ensure the transported parts are not damaged, while at the same time keeping logistics costs as low as possible. Most of the services and materials necessary for the manufacture of these systems will be purchased from Lithuanian suppliers.





With factories in the UK and India, the company supplies its container systems to well-known brands such as Jaguar, Bentley, Volvo, Ford, Toyota, and BMW. The company also produces the transportation systems used by Airbus to transport flaps for its A320 aircraft. As representatives from the company explained, this is an extremely complicated project due to the non-standard dimensions of the part and its susceptibility to damage.





Gediminas Koryzna, Team Lead of Manufacturing team of the foreign direct investment agency Invest Lithuania, believes investments like the one by MJ Systems play a key role in the local economy. “Investment projects in the car industry should be considered ‘trump cards’ in terms of enabling the diversification of direct foreign investments,” Mr Koryzna points out. “Production factories used for vehicle components and for products used in this industry usually provide jobs both for highly skilled specialists and for employees with lower qualifications. That means investment products like these are one of the best ways to stimulate the regional economy.”





The company hopes that the factory in Plungė will develop and produce a wider range of products in the future.