(AGI) Turin, Apr 8 - Sergio Marchionne, CEO of FCA, met onWednesday afternoon the head of the regional EMEA, AlfredoAltavilla, and together they called an assembly of the Termoliplant workers. The managers announced that the plant has beenselected to manufacture two new engines for upcoming Alfa Romeovehicles. These engines will contribute considerably to therelaunching of the brand internationally. One of the engines isgasoline powered and has four cylinders, manufactured withcutting edge technologies and an advanced drive system. Theother is a 6-cylinder Ferrari style product. Both have beenspecially designed for Alfa. The plant's output will be over200,000 engines, meeting about half the needs of Alfa Romeo's2018 schedules. The preliminary installations of the new plantare already in place and, during Wednesday's meeting, the firstmachine was set up on one of the future production lines -namely a Comau machine for the mechanical assembling of thecylinder heads. All in all, the design, development,engineering cost of the engine and construction of the newlines will mean an investment of over half a billion euros. Theworks are scheduled to be completed in six months. In themeantime, employee training courses will be organised. Theproduction of the two new engines will cancel the redundancyplan at Termoli, which currently employs 2400 people. The firstimportant sign is that, in the coming months, 50 young workerswill be hired to be placed in strategic posts within the newthree-shift system. "This hi-tech project is part and parcel ofthe Alfa Romeo challenge. It has been assigned to you, virtueof your technical expertise. This is an opportunity to prove tothe rest of the world the power of your know-how," said SergioMarchionne to the Termoli plant workers. The CEO's visit to theplant was organised also to celebrate 30 years of the FIREengine, manufactured in Termoli since March 1985. Twentymillion have been produced, representing a great success in theautomobile industry. The workers of the automotive engine andtransmission plant, which is seldom in the media limelight,listened to Marchionne wrapping up his speech with: "Considerthis your pride and glory. In a society where appearances oftencount more than substance, you are the symbol of all those whowork silently and seriously, those who give priority to factsrather than to theory, all those who are truly committed tosolving problems. You embody the values which we believed inwhen we founded FCA - namely a sense of duty, ethical labour,generosity in hard times and courage to stand out personally ifneed be." (AGI).