Chinese Company Punai to Renew Former Magnohrom Factory

The world-prestigious Chinese company Punai, which produces refractory materials, is renewing one of the facilities of the former Magnohrom factory in Kraljevo. This is a former facility for the production of refractory bricks, which was raised in the late 1980s and which was then a technologically modern factory equipped with state-of the-art equipment for the time. However, Magnohrom fell apart in the 1990s, three factories changed ownership following bankruptcy proceedings, and said factory was also bought out of bankruptcy by the Belgrade-based company Malbex in 2018. However, there had been no production in the ensuing three years, so the facility was sold in 2021 to the Chinese company Punai, which immediately started reconstructing the facilities and installing state-of-the-art machinery and equipment.

– Our corporation supplies around 70 steel mills in the world with refractory materials, and since there already is one in Serbia, we decided to invest in this factory, so in the first phase, we invested around EUR 7 million. The facility will open on June 6 this year and we are counting on an initial annual production of thirty thousand tons. Through continued investments, we will invest around EUR 3 million more in order to reach the planned annual production volume of fifty thousand tons of bricks. The facility will be the most modern one in Europe in this field of production – said Liu Lianbing, the vice president of the Chinese corporation, addressing the journalists while visiting the factory with Predrag Terzic, the mayor of Kraljevo.

– Due to the modern and automated production, around a hundred workers will be employed here initially, and later on much more. Following the investment by foreign and local investors, we invested a considerable sum of money in the reconstruction of the infrastructure, build a modern traffic route, the so-called northern bypass route around Kraljevo, which obviously quickly pays off through the raising of production facilities of foreign and local companies in this area – Terzic pointed out.

Punai Serbia doo Kraljevo

Grad Kraljevo

MALBEX EXPORT IMPORT DOO BEOGRAD

Magnohrom d.o.o. Kraljevo

Punai

Magnohrom

Malbex

City of Kraljevo

Liu Lianbing

Predrag Terzić

bricks

production of bricks

production of refractory materials