TULA, 7 July (BelTA) – The StankoGomel machine tool building company and Tulamashzavod Production Association are launching a joint project in machine tool building, Tulamashzavod Director General Yevgeny Dronov told the media, BelTA has learned.
According to him, the project is designed to set up a horizontal and a vertical machining center. There are plans to produce the pilot items by the end of 2017 and start batch production in 2019.
The director general believes this project holds great promise. He estimated the sales volume at some hundreds of millions of Russian rubles.
“This is 100% import substitution. These centers will help us replace Japanese, German, and Italian equipment,” Yevgeny Dronov remarked. He emphasized that Belarus has managed to preserve its machine tool building sector which was virtually destroyed in Russia. This is why the project is of great importance to the Russian side as part of the effort to recover national machine tool building.
The director general added the Gomel partners are working on the technical development of the document. Tulamashzavod will assemble and produce separate details.
Speaking about the cooperation with Belarus in general, Yevgeny Dronov pointed out that the bilateral ties go long way back. He named Minsk Motor Plant, the Vitebsk-based radio parts factory Monolit, Brest Electric Lamp Plant, the Volna company (Grodno), Elmis (Gomel) and other Belarusian companies as Tulamashzavod's partners. “We are satisfied with both quality and prices of the Belarusian products. The main thing is that we have mutual understanding and we are eager to work together,” Yevgeny Dronov noted.
The Belarusian and Russian journalists visited Tulamashzavod as part of the press tour arranged by the Union State Standing Committee and the international news agency Russia Today.