The French manufacturer of electric bicycles and scooters Cibox will settle in 2023 on an industrial wasteland in the Ardennes, after the failure of a relocation of Mercier cycles to the same place last July.
The company must set up Revin (Ardennes) as a first step in a repair, reconditioning and recycling activity which provides for the hiring of around twenty employees in early 2023, according to the Grand Est Region.
It will be followed by a production plant, which should represent a hundred jobs by 2024.
The State and the Region have undertaken to support the project to the tune of 1.8 million euros out of a total investment of 4.6 million, specified the vice-president of the region in charge of economic development, Boris Ravignon.
In addition, the real estate investment of 16 million euros, necessary to convert the Porchet industrial wasteland, ten years after the closure of the sanitary facilities, will be entirely carried out by the public authorities which will rent the Cibox building.
This is a real relocation of a subcontracted activity in Romania and China, with development hoped for in parallel with the development of electric bicycles.
A first project providing for the creation of 270 jobs on this site within 5 years, thanks to a relocation of the Mercier cycles, was capped in mid-2021 after the state decided to withdraw its support of several million euros.
Bercy had explained this reversal by suspicions of tax and customs irregularities, but this decision had caused misunderstanding in this economically sinister commune.
I hope that there will be no new disappointment, that this time the State has checked the situation of investors, reacted the deputy LR Pierre Cordier, stressing that this announcement will give hope to the inhabitants.
The revival of the cycling sector in France is seen by the government as a symbol of industrial renewal.
Nearly 2.7 million bicycles were sold in France in 2020 (+25% over one year), including 514,600 electric assistance bicycles (+29%), for three billion euros in turnover, according to the Union sports and cycling.