Translated material
Shipyards will merge quickly
Vladimir Putin is preparing a decree on shipbuilding
Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday instructed Minister of Industry and Energy Viktor Khristenko to urgently prepare a draft decree on the creation of an all-Russian shipbuilding holding. The Ministry of Industry and Energy has already developed a basic scheme for such an association. As Yury Koptev, director of the Ministry of Industry and Energy department, said yesterday, it is proposed to take the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), formed last year, as a model. The shipbuilding holding will, however, have two significant differences from the UAC. Firstly, its production will be focused mainly on the domestic market, and not on export, as in the aviation industry. Secondly, shipyards will be merged quickly, without negotiations with the private sector of the industry.“Viktor Borisovich, I ask you to prepare within a week together with the (presidential) administration a draft decree on the creation of a shipbuilding corporation for the legal formalization of the decisions that we have agreed upon,” Vladimir Putin told the head of the Ministry of Industry and Energy Viktor Khristenko yesterday at the weekly meeting with government members.
According to Yuri Koptev, these decisions provide for the formation of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) JSC with three regional subsidiaries - Western, Northern and Far Eastern. At the beginning of February, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said that “in shipbuilding we will have several holdings - at least three.” However, the idea of centralizing the industry under state control prevailed.
The new structure will be built taking into account the existing geographical distribution of enterprises and their profile in the industry, says Mr. Koptev. OJSC "Western Shipbuilding Center" (St. Petersburg) will specialize in diesel submarines, surface military and civilian vessels. The “Northern Center” (Arkhangelsk region), as now, will be busy with the construction of a nuclear submarine fleet, and will also master the production of ships and floating platforms for the development of the sea shelf, and possibly floating nuclear power plants. "Western Center" (Vladivostok, Nakhodka) will focus on the repair of the Pacific Fleet, as well as on servicing oil and gas production projects on the local shelf.
According to Mr. Koptev, it will be possible to create a USC management company quickly - within two or three months after the issuance of the relevant presidential decree. In the case of the UAC, by the way, the first stage of integration alone took almost a year. For speed, the following scheme is supposed to be used. The initial capital of USC will be formed from state assets of design bureaus. Moreover, one of the 100 percent state-owned design bureaus, already transformed into an OJSC, will be chosen as the basis for the merger. In St. Petersburg, JSC Nevsky Design Bureau meets these requirements. According to Mr. Koptev, this could be the starting point for the formation of USC. Its authorized capital will increase as other commercial banks that currently have the status of federal state unitary enterprises are corporatized and their shares are transferred to USC. Similarly, regional branches will be formed around existing state-owned OJSCs.
A representative of the Ministry of Industry and Energy noted that only state assets will be merged. Private companies will be able to join the process on an individual basis, subject to mutual interest between them and the state in joint shipbuilding projects.
Referring to the experience of forming an aircraft manufacturing holding, the creation of which at the initial stage was coordinated by a non-profit partnership formed by private enterprises in the industry, Mr. Koptev said that the relevant government commission still played a decisive positive role in the process. Accordingly, it is proposed to entrust the USC with the same inter-ministerial commission, without the participation of “private traders” slowing down the matter.
The result should be a state-controlled holding company, the main customer of which will remain the same Russian state. According to estimates by the Ministry of Industry and Energy, the industry's production volume should increase by 2.2 times by 2015, while the share of civil shipbuilding in it will be only 34%. The rest will be left to orders from the Russian Navy and export contracts from foreign fleets.