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Renault is to invest €100 million over the next two years to develop its engineering capabilities in Romania.

Renault Technologies Romania will employ around 3,000 people by the end of 2009, the group said, up from the present 1,400, and will join other regional engineering centres in Brazil and Korea under the main Renault Engineering group.

The Romanian centre will be split across three sites. The biggest office will be a design office in the capital, Bucharest, employing 1,900 people. At Pitesti, there will be an office devoted to providing engineering services for the body assembly and powertrain plants. And Renault also intends for the first time to have a test centre with test tracks and benches, to be started up in the second half of 2009.

Sales and marketing vice-president Patrick Blain told Automotive Engineer magazine in April that one of the priorities for the Renault group would be to divert some of the group's engineering resource away from the concentration in France towards a more worldwide presence. Other technical centres could be opened later in India and Argentina, he hinted.