Paltechnica, the only company in Israel that makes seats for buses and cars, has shut down. 100 employees, 20 of them members of Kibbutz Nitzanim, where the company was located, have been laid off. A small team remains at the factory to sell off the equipment, Hebrew daily "Yediot Ahronot" reports.
The factory was founded in 1943. The building in which it operated is now available for leasing.
In the past two years, Paltechnica has been hit hard in all its areas of activity: in its office furniture business, which suffers from competition from cheap imports from China, and in defense, where the company was a supplier for Plasan Sasa of Kibbutz Sasa, and made seats for the armored vehicle ordered from Plasan Sasa by the US military. After the US withdrew from Afghanistan and Iraq, orders declined sharply. Moreover, a large investment in developing a special shock-absorbing vehicle seat failed.
The final blow was the decision by Minister of Transport Yisrael Katz to allow the import of buses from China. Also, Israel Railways deferred its next tenders for seats to 2017, and there was no guarantee that Paltechnica would win.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 15, 2015
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