Bulgarian car battery maker Monbat opened on June 9 a 13 million euro lead recycling plant near Romania's capital Bucharest at a ceremony attended by Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boiko Borissov and his Romanian counterpart Emil Boc.

The plant is Bulgaria's most important investment in Romania, Boc said.

The facility, the company's third recycling unit, employs 65 and has an annual processing capacity of 40 000 tons of batteries a year. The processed lead and polypropylene will be used for production of car batteries in Bulgaria.

Monbat is a unit of Bulgaran group Prista Oil, one of the largest lubricants producers in Eastern Europe. The company sells its products to Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Romania, Poland, Slovakia and Russia.

Monbat also has recycling plants in Bulgaria and Serbia