The concern launched a plant in Dzerzhinsk

The Liebherr concern has completed the construction of its first Russian plant in Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod region. The company has already invested about 200 million euros in the production of components for construction equipment and the aviation industry and plans to expand its capacity. Against the backdrop of the recovery and projected growth of the Russian construction market, due to the localization of production, the concern will reduce logistics costs and will be able to directly control its Russian contractors, experts believe.

The first three workshops of the Liebherr plant - for the production of components for aircraft, earth-moving equipment and tower cranes - opened last Friday. In total, the workshops occupy 70 thousand square meters. m. The factory premises, which, according to the company, will soon begin work in test mode, will house the production of two specially created legal entities: Liebherr-Aerospace Nizhny Novgorod LLC (75.1% belongs to the president of Nizhny Novgorod OJSC Gidromash Vladimir Luzyanin , 24.9% - Liebherr-Aerospace Russland), which specializes in the production and assembly of hydraulic cylinders for flight control systems, and Liebherr-Nizhny Novgorod LLC (100% structure of the Liebherr concern), which produces metal structures and components for various types of construction equipment. Liebherr is preparing to supply elements of metal structures for earthmoving equipment to its own factories in Germany, France and Austria, and structures of tower cranes to the Russian market. Equipment for the aviation industry will be produced both for the Russian aviation industry (the company has already received licenses from the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation for the production and repair of dual-use aircraft) and for foreign ones.

The company invested about 200 million euros and another 53 million rubles in the construction of the first stage of the plant. allocated by the Nizhny Novgorod government for the laying and supply of utilities and access roads to the site. The payback of the project will be about five to seven years, noted the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Valery Shantsev, who was present at the opening ceremony of the plant, and all this time the plant will receive benefits on income tax and property tax. The second phase of the plant provides for the expansion of production by adding two more buildings. The parameters of the project are still unknown, but it is assumed that in the future the company will move from producing metal structures for earthmoving equipment and tower cranes to assembling them. In recent years, Russia has become a very good market for Liebherr (for more details, see the reference), which, against the backdrop of the rise of the construction industry, is especially in need of specialized equipment, explained the concern’s interest in localizing production in Russia, Willy Liebherr, President of the Board of Liebherr International AG, co-owner of the Liebherr Group.

What is Liebherr known for?

The concern made the decision to build an enterprise in Russia in 2006; it began in the fall of 2008. The plant in Dzerzhinsk became the first Russian production of Liebherr - before that, the concern had in Russia only a network of ten branches and a repair and warehouse complex in Odintsovo, near Moscow. Vladimir Luzyanin invited Liebherr to the Nizhny Novgorod region: the concern has maintained a partnership with Gidromash for 20 years. Currently, under contracts with Liebherr structures, Gidromash produces hydraulic cylinders for road construction and earth-moving equipment, loaders, excavators and self-propelled concrete mixers. In addition, the companies are implementing joint proposals for landing gear systems and hydraulics for Airbus, Embraer, Global Express aircraft, and the Agusta helicopter. In the volume of direct export supplies of Hydromash, orders from Liebherr account for about 80%.

“The construction of a new site makes it possible to equip it with modern equipment to ensure proper quality - this is cheaper than modernization, since the cost of production does not fall on the maintenance of the infrastructure of an entire huge Soviet plant, but an enterprise is created to meet the needs,” explains the mutual interest of Messrs. Liebherr and Luzyanin in terms of the production of aircraft components, the head of the analytical service of the Aviaport agency Oleg Panteleev. In addition, according to the expert, by moving its own production to Russia, Liebherr has the opportunity to reduce logistics costs for deliveries both from Hydromash and to the Russian market in general, and at the same time directly control the timing and quality of order fulfillment by local partners.

The first aircraft contracts of the Dzerzhinsk plant Liebherr

Localization of construction equipment production in Russia is no less justified, industry experts point out. The domestic construction market, which will become the main consumer of earth-moving equipment and tower cranes, is beginning to grow this year, although housing commissioning in the country as a whole will fall by 5–7% by 2010, notes Evgeniy Botka, General Director of the Construction Information Agency: “A slight decrease in volumes of commissioned housing does not mean that construction work will stop. The current year has become a year of transition, when construction projects started before the crisis are being completed, and the implementation of new projects has not yet entered an active phase.” In 2012, in his opinion, a new rise in the construction market will begin, and the volume of housing commissioning will increase by 5–7% compared to the current year. IFC Metropol analyst Andrey Rozhkov adds that costs for the construction of transport infrastructure in Russia will show an increase of up to 40–60% by 2010, and road construction companies, when increasing the volume of work, will need to purchase new equipment - on average, its service life is no more than three to five years.

Anna Pavlova

Liebherr gains a foothold in Russia