| Sberbank will help him with this by issuing an extra-long loan. An unprecedented long-term loan by Russian standards for eight years was provided by Sberbank of Russia to the North-Western Shipping Company (NWP). $49 million was provided to the shipping company to launch its own shipbuilding program.
NWP announced the construction of ten river-sea class dry cargo ships back in the spring of this year. The holding company “New Programs and Concepts”, which owns the SZP and is close to the Interros financial and industrial group, does not intend to lose its position in the cargo transportation market after decommissioning the obsolete part of the St. Petersburg shipping company’s fleet. Most of the shipping company's cargo turnover comes from the export of timber and metal from inland Russian ports to Europe.
The project of new transport ships of the Valdai type, which will be built with money from Sberbank, was developed by the Nizhny Novgorod Central Design Bureau "Vympel". Dry cargo ships are universal and are capable of transporting bulk and general cargo, as well as containers. It is expected that the construction of a series of transports with a carrying capacity of 5 thousand tons each will begin in January 2001 at the St. Petersburg Severnaya Verf. Previously, Russian surface combatants left its slipways. Now this enterprise builds destroyers for China and dry cargo ships for the Northwestern Shipyard, with which the shipyard has a common owner - “New Programs and Concepts”.
The total cost of ten transports that will be built for the shipping company is $55 million. Of these, SZP was able to raise only 6 million from its own funds, the rest of the money was raised through a 49 million loan from Sberbank. A source in one of the St. Petersburg banks, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Vremya Novostey newspaper that the financial institutions of Interros, which controls New Programs and Concepts, do not independently finance the project due to “too high costs. The fact is that they "BaltONEXIMbank, which is the financial center of Interros in the North-West, now has more pressing concerns." Victor MATVEEV, St. Petersburg |
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