Plans for Belarusian-Russian machine-tool building cluster unveiled

Roman Golovchenko said: “The production of machine tools is a very important sphere now. We understand perfectly well that it is impossible to develop the processing industry without modern machine tools. Today we can see once again how correct the decision to preserve the Belarusian machine-tool building industry was. And the demand for Belarusian metalworking machine tools is high right now. But the key task now is to rapidly begin the production of a new type of machine tools, a new type of processing centers. One manufacturer or one developer will have a hard time accomplishing it. This is why we've talked to our Russian colleagues about the need to set up such a machine-tool building cluster soon, probably an interstate cluster with some state support measures.”

In his words, this branch of the manufacturing sector is expected to start growing very fast. “It is at the junction of machine building and computing technologies, information technologies because modern processing centers are certainly full of modern electronics. This is why since, for instance, Bashkortostan has competences in the certification of machine-tool equipment, Russia's only machine-tool certification center has been established there. It is also very important. Here are enterprises of Tatarstan, the defense sector and the civilian sector of the economy. They need a lot of machine tools, including those made in Belarus. This is why there is also a strong interest in this sphere,” Roman Golovchenko noted.

New projects in the petrochemical industry are also under consideration. “On the whole, shipments of raw materials and semi-finished goods from Tatarstan to Belarus are very active. We've agreed to make them regular, stable, and profitable as far as prices are concerned. Because right now when many enterprises are operating at their full capacity, in two shifts, it is every important to preserve smooth and uninterrupted deliveries of all the main components to assembly lines. We've also talked a great deal about it and reconciled all these mutual plans,” Roman Golovchenko added.