László Mándi, Momentum’s local government representative and the opposition alliance’s candidate for the Debrecen parliament, wrote on his Facebook page last week that the construction of Semcorp’s factory in Debrecen had been stopped and that the company will not make its investment in Debrecen, which would have created 440 jobs.
László Mándi’s allegations were quickly refuted by Mayor of Debrecen László Papp and Deputy Mayor of Debrecen Lajos Barcsa, who referred to a statement from James Shih, Semcorp’s vice-president, for confirmation.
Finally, the mayor read a statement of by James Shih, director of global projects at Semcorp, at the meeting of the General Assembly. According to the statement of Shih “there is no basis for the unconfirmed rumors that Semcorp is suspending its project in Debrecen. Our customers are excited about the start of our manufacturing capacity in Hungary and our team and partners are doing everything possible to ensure that this happens according to our announced plans and timelines. In addition to construction, we have made significant progress in recruitment and look forward to continuing to build our local organization. We are working closely with local authorities and will continue to do so.”
László Mándi told a local newspaper later that he had heard the information from industry players and yet had been in the Southern Economic Zone recently and had seen construction work in progress. He said that he thus may have been inaccurate in writing that construction had stopped.
