"KAMAZ" from Kokchetav

Nursultan Nazarbayev personally inspected the first Russian-Kazakh truck

Russia's largest manufacturer of heavy-duty equipment, KamAZ, whose main production is located in Naberezhnye Chelny, organized assembly in Kazakhstan. On Friday in Kokchetav, where the new plant is located, within the framework of the joint Russian-Kazakh enterprise KamAZ-Engineering (KamAZ owns 76% of the shares, the Kazakhstan-Engineering enterprise - 24%) began serial production of trucks and buses. The joint venture will become the largest foreign assembly site that the Kama plant currently has: the design capacity is 1.5 thousand trucks and 200 passenger buses per year (it is planned to produce 2.8 thousand trucks at the base facilities in Tatarstan this year). President of the Republic Nursultan Nazarbayev, who was present at the opening ceremony of the plant, said that the plant should become the starting point for the creation of a completely new automotive industry in Kazakhstan.

The Russian Ministry of Industry and Energy explains KamAZ's entry into the Kazakh market both by the dynamic pace of development of the neighboring state and by the strategic plans of the enterprise itself. Its annual production growth is 20%, and therefore new capacities and sales markets are required. KamAZ currently has assembly plants only in Vietnam and Azerbaijan. In Kazakhstan, almost 70% of all cargo transportation is carried out by KamAZ trucks, which are purchased in Russia.

Deputy Head of the Ministry of Industry and Energy Andrey Reus noted that the project to create KamAZ-Engineering is one of the first large and most successful joint Russian-Kazakh projects in the field of production. In the future, he said, “joint entry into other segments of the automotive market is possible.”

The authorities of Kazakhstan approve the new project: “We have agreed with KamAZ, we are starting to work, we are creating conditions, we will support,” Mr. Nazarbayev said at the ceremony of finishing the assembly of the first car and the first bus.

The KamAZ-Engineering JV was established in May of this year. Its design capacity will be 2.35 thousand vehicles per year, including 200 buses, 1,500 dump trucks and 650 dump trailers. In August, 24 KamAZ-55111 and KamAZ-65115 trucks, ten NefAZ-5299 buses and eight cargo vans will roll off the joint venture’s assembly line. It is expected that starting next year the organization of production of dump trucks for KamAZ vehicles and trailers will begin. And from 2007 it is planned to organize the production of bus showrooms. In the near future, the production of parts for the main conveyor in Naberezhnye Chelny will also be launched.

Yana GODOVANAYA