Leningrad Region to Draft New Shipbuilding Cluster Program

The Leningrad Region government will create a new program to develop the shipbuilding center during the restrictions imposed by the sanctions and in line with a survey by the Krylov State Research Centre. The results of the survey will be submitted before the year is out, a spokesperson for the regional government press service told RIA Novosti.

The Krylov State Research Centre is a major world-class agency in ship design and manufacturing. Acting on orders from the regional government, the centre will assess the state and prospects for developing the regional shipbuilding centre before the year is out; and a development program will be created that is based on this, the regional government’s press service noted.

The sector’s dependence on imports calls for new approaches to development, the spokesperson added. The survey will assess and estimate the development of the shipbuilding and ship-repair market, demand for production assets and technologies, mid-term and long-term demand for the centre’s products and services, state-support measures for national shipbuilding and ship-repair companies and international experience in this area.

This year, the Leningrad Region asked the State Duma to charge zero VAT on shipbuilding subcontractors. This measure is expected to drastically boost the profitability of contracts being awarded by United Shipbuilding Company. The regional administration was also involved in charging lower interest rates on loans to the Vyborg Shipyard.

On 16 November, the regional government, shipbuilders and trade unions signed an agreement to regulate social-labour relations in the shipbuilding sector in 2015-2018. This will promote the sustained performance of the sector’s companies.

The document was signed by Dmitry Yalov, Deputy Head of the Leningrad Region Government and Chairman of the Economic Development and Investment Projects Committee; Alexander Alyoshkin, President of the Inter-Regional Departmental Non-Profit Association of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs ‘Association of Shipbuilders in St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region’; and Sergei Maximenko, Chairman of the National Trade Union of Employees of the Shipbuilding and Ship-Repair Sector and Marine Technology Operators. The agreement regulates remuneration and production-quota issues, work-safety measures and the professional development of human resources.

“We are always supporting the shipbuilding industry, a high-priority sector in the Leningrad Region’s economy. Shipbuilders, trade unions and state agencies are pledging to boost the efficiency of the shipbuilding companies and to raise the salaries of their employees,” Mr Yalov noted at the signing ceremony.

The regional shipbuilding centre includes such companies as the Vyborg Shipyard, the Pella Shipyard in the Kirovsky District of St Petersburg, the Nevsky Shipbuilding and Ship-Repair Plant in Schlusselburg, the Burevestnik and KRIZO Plants in Gatchina and the Ladoga Plant in Kirovsk.