Attack on Ukrainian factory linked to foreign investor forces relocations and raises costs

Production linked to a foreign investor in North Macedonia has been disrupted after one of the investor’s factories in Ukraine was attacked, prompting companies here to shift some capacity and warn of higher costs and uneven order volumes.

Companies operating in the country report swings in weekly orders not seen before, which they attribute to global tensions and supply-chain uncertainty. Those pressures, they say, also force a relocation of production from conflict zones to safer sites.

“There is fluctuation; I would say it is very uneven. Something that never happened before. One week 3,000, the next week 1,500, then it returns to very high orders. We have problems with our factory in Ukraine; we have two factories. One factory was under attack by Russian forces and we must transfer part of the production there. And that will, of course, increase costs,” said Gjorgji Trenkovski, commercial director of Kromberg & Schubert Macedonia.

Relocations, shutdowns and unanswered questions

In recent months several investors present in North Macedonia have announced moves or pauses: APTIV and BMZ said they will stop production in the country by the end of the year and relocate operations to other states such as Poland and Portugal. Earlier, American company Dura also closed its site.

It remains unclear whether new investors will take over the APTIV and BMZ plants in the Skopje industrial zone or whether those facilities will remain vacant. The TIRZ authority says negotiations with a potential investor are underway and that it expects to know the outcome by year-end. Meanwhile, the company Avesta has yet to realize an investment in Kičevo for which a cornerstone was laid two years ago.

Official figures show that, over a two‑year period from July 2024 to June 2026, total inflows of foreign direct investment amounted to 1.3 billion. Data provided by TIRZ indicate that much of those investments come from companies already operating in the country, underscoring how existing investors are adjusting footprints rather than new players entering the market.

Photo: press material from the event