New Unit-New Horizons

Vasiliki Koutsouradi an economist of ASOEE, with an industrial family tradition, daughter of Nikolaos Koutsouradis, who in 1984 won the first prize of Greek exports in the field of footwear with Ropa SA since she directed Sofikitis Decorative Stones Ltd. successfully for 2 years, filed in November 2011 a new investment proposal under the NSRF 2007-2013 and specifically in the context of the “NEW INNOVATION ACTIVITY”.

The investment proposal was drafted with the decisive contribution of Mechanical Engineer Mr. Kosma Charalambides filed on November 1, 2011, in the Western Greek Region and included: 1) Purchase of patented knowledge with OBI 2) Construction of prototype production equipment and 3) Participation in international pool exhibitions around the world.

At the beginning of June the proposal was evaluated and received a total score of 720 / 1000 points receiving the 60% of the budget as a community and public funding.

The investment is being inaugurated today on June 16, 2012 at Lygourio of Argolida, in the factory “Mercouri”, utilizing all existing industrial infrastructures, which for over 3 decades successfully operated and produced the Marble of Argolida, well-known throughout Greece. Merkouris Kaloudis for 30 years rightly held the title of the cleanest and tidiest craftsman of marbles of Peloponnese, will remain the manager of operation of the unit.

Kosmas Charalambides who was General Manager of 2 of the larger Greek pool companies Filpro Anthopoulos & Piscines Ideales for the past 23 years and who has recently moved to Nafplio opening his own company Piscinity manufacturing swimming pools, and took and orchestrated the specific investment will continue to play a key role and will remain the Project Manager of the investment.

Finally our Export consultant, economist with a distinguished career and 19 years of presence and experience in exporting for a large multinational company in building materials, coveted rapporteur of export seminars in the last 2 years, has undertaken as a counselor of exports, betting that the new company will start, from its first use, to export over 67% of its production.

The company specializes in producing of marble grates, both simple and sandwiches with the aid of artificial materials such as porcelain and Inox. All its products are certified and tested by the workshop of IGME Stone. At the start of the investment produced 150 meters of excellent quality grate are produced every 8 hours, while the completion of investment in 2013 is expected to be over 1 container with 1,500 feet of marble grate every 24 hours, carrying the weight of the task in promoting the export department of the company, since it is obvious that these quantities could not be consumed in the Greek market or in the golden five years 2002-2007.

The investment is expected to create between 2-8 jobs over the next 2 years and is expected to export up to 60-95% of its products in mature pool markets on 5 continents . The international monopoly provided by the patented marble grate  production for the next 19 years, is estimated to be the main advantage of the company even before the official start of its operation, has received interesting proposals of joint operation of patents (Joint Ventures) in Russia, Iran and Argentina, in countries with particularly high taxes on luxury items such as pool accessories.