British American Tobacco (BAT), the largest consumer goods producer on the domestic market, has selected Bucharest to open a financial service centre.

British American Shared Services Europe (BASS Europe) will be located in  the Romanian capital and will serve 36 European countries from Ireland and the UK to Romania, Bulgaria and Cyprus by 2010.
The company will hire 250 people over the next three years to work at the centre. "The selection process considered 19 locations in Europe and had an extensive set of criteria. Among the reasons that led to this decision is the professionalism of the workforce and the high productivity," said Bart Maas, BAT Romania's managing director.
BASS Europe will be the primary European centre of financial services for BAT and operations are expected to start in September.
BAT posted turnover worth EUR 824 million on the domestic market, and was the largest consumer goods producer as a result. (pi)