New €100m Soprema Factory to Transform Almeirim’s Skyline

Cranes, earth-movers and a brand-new skyline are heading for central Ribatejo. French insulation powerhouse Soprema has earmarked €100 million for a second factory in the region, a move that underscores how foreign capital is quietly turning Portugal’s agricultural heartland into a manufacturing corridor—and that promises skilled jobs well before decade’s end.

A bet on Ribatejo’s crossroads

The Tagus plain may look sleepy from the A1 motorway, yet its location between Lisbon’s ports and Spain’s land routes makes it a logistics sweet-spot. Soprema will slot the new plant into Almeirim, just 9 km from its existing Alpiarça line. The short hop allows an integrated supply chain, faster truck dispatch via the A13 and, crucially, access to the skilled workforce of Santarém and the Lezíria do Tejo agricultural cluster. Local officials also point to abundant flat land, low seismic risk, reliable renewable energy feeds and a business park already zoned for heavy industry—all factors that persuaded the French group to double down on the Ribatejo region rather than expand elsewhere in Iberia.

Inside Soprema’s expansion blueprint

Headquartered in Strasbourg and posting more than €5 billion in annual sales, Soprema wants to use Portugal as its Southern Europe hub for waterproofing, thermal and acoustic solutions. The Almeirim unit—designed with rooftop solar arrays, rain-water harvesting and a closed-loop waste system—will push output high enough to serve Spain, Morocco and Italy from a single Iberian base. Company executives say at least 50 direct positions will be advertised once construction moves into the commissioning phase, with “several hundred” indirect roles in transport, maintenance and engineering services. Ground-breaking is pencilled in for early 2026 following an environmental impact review; first production rolls are scheduled for 2027, giving Portugal’s building sector a fresh source of low-carbon insulation materials exactly when EU renovation targets tighten.

Part of a wider French offensive

Soprema’s cheque is part of a surge that has made France the second-largest foreign investor in Portugal. Central bank data show French FDI stock hitting €16.6 B by Q1 2025, up 15 % year-on-year. Household names are fanning out across the map: Somfy’s domotics plant in Felgueiras aims for 800 jobs, Stellantis Mangualde is preparing to assemble 92 000 electric vans in 2025, and Engie is funnelling €100 M into district-energy grids. Even aerospace giant Airbus wants a quarter of its supply chain anchored here by 2026. Economists credit Portugal’s political stability, a corporate tax credit for R&D and the country’s growing green-energy matrix for the momentum. Soprema, for its part, says Portugal’s bilingual talent pool and “predictable permitting” tipped the balance over comparable sites in Spain’s Aragon and France’s Occitanie regions.

What’s in it for local communities?

Almeirim’s mayor, Pedro Ribeiro, has billed the project as the town’s largest industrial coup since the pulp mills of the 1990s. Beyond the headline jobs, Soprema will fund a vocational-training module at the Instituto Politécnico de Santarém, helping welders and lab technicians retrain for high-performance materials. Suppliers of cork dust, recycled plastics and transport logistics are already courting contracts, and municipal coffers stand to gain from extra property-tax revenue. Environmental groups, meanwhile, acknowledge the factory’s “near-zero discharge” design but vow to monitor water-table impacts in the surrounding charneca soils. Residents say the biggest shift may be sociological: keeping young graduates in the region instead of watching them commute daily to Lisbon.

Next steps and the open questions

The company still refuses to detail which public incentives—be they European Recovery funds, municipal tax rebates or carbon-transition grants—will finance the 9-hectare build. While planning authorities have issued a preliminary green light, final licensing hinges on noise-abatement measures for nearby villages and a biodiversity offset along the Vala de Alpiarça canal. Should hurdles clear, concrete foundations will be poured after next winter’s rains, with machinery installation starting late 2026. Analysts say a 12-month ramp-up period is typical, meaning full shift production by mid-2028 is plausible if supply chains hold. Whatever the date, another French flag on Portugal’s industrial map signals that the era of casting the country solely as a tourist haven is over; the next chapter is being written in factory blueprints and dry-dock contracts across Ribatejo and beyond.