Albania Economia
An interview with Dr. Giulio Fumagalli Romario on the Group’s industrial growth, medical leadership, and energy transition strategy.
SOL Group is a family-owned Italian industrial group listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, with more than 4,000 employees and a consolidated turnover of €833 million (2018). Operating in 29 countries across Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia, the Group has built a diversified business model spanning industry, healthcare, and energy.
In an interview with Dr. Giulio Fumagalli Romario, Executive Director of SOL Group, the company’s strategic vision emerges clearly: a strong industrial base combined with continuous innovation in medical and environmental applications.
The Group’s core activity is the production and distribution of technical, pure, and medical gases—including oxygen, nitrogen, argon, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide—serving sectors such as metallurgy, plastics, food processing, environmental management, and healthcare. Alongside this, SOL Group provides home-care services for patients with respiratory diseases, reinforcing its role in the medical sector.
Its approach goes beyond supply: SOL delivers integrated solutions combining gases, technologies, and engineering services designed to optimize production processes, reduce environmental impact, lower operational costs, and improve both product quality and workplace safety.
Applications range from welding gas mixtures with advanced monitoring technologies, to nitrogen-based cooling and inerting processes, oxygen solutions for wastewater treatment, and a wide set of food-grade applications including freezing, modified atmosphere packaging, carbonation, and agricultural enhancement techniques.
In healthcare, SOL Group supplies essential medical gases and therapeutic solutions, including specialized medicines for pain relief and neonatal care. It also develops complex infrastructures such as medical gas distribution systems, cryobanks, laboratories, and cell factories, as well as operational services for hospitals and research centers.
A key pillar of the Group’s growth is its long-standing presence in Southeast Europe. Since the early 1990s, SOL has developed production plants in Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, and North Macedonia, supported by a widespread network of filling and distribution facilities across the region, including Albania, where the Group entered in 1996.
Today, SOL operates in Albania through two companies employing around 30 people, with a combined turnover of €8.6 million (2018). Its subsidiary G.T.S. – Gazra Teknike Shqiptare is a leading supplier of industrial and medical gases, serving over 1,000 clients and major hospitals such as QSUT, Pneumology, Koço Gliozheni Maternity Hospital, and the American Hospital network.
The Albanian operations are also expanding into advanced production, including a certified sulfur dioxide plant for food applications, aimed at supporting the wine industry in Italy and abroad.
Facing the energy-intensive nature of gas production, SOL Group has diversified into renewable energy, developing and managing 15 hydroelectric plants across Slovenia, Albania, North Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, generating over 100 million kWh per year. In Albania, HydroEnergy operates two dam-fed plants producing around 30 GWh in cascade.
Through its participation in Confindustria networks across Eastern Europe, including Confindustria Albania, SOL Group continues to position itself as a bridge between Italian industry and local markets, supporting business development and institutional collaboration, particularly in energy transition and sustainable industrial growth.
Primary production plant for technical gases in Kavadarci. (MK)
Primary production plant for technical gases in Jesenice (SLO)
GTS in Tirana
New sulfur dioxide plant in Tirana
