Export potential of Russian shipbuilding
Russia’s civil shipbuilding has been traditionally focused on the following segments: high-speed passenger ships, sophisticated ships for Arctic application, icebreakers and ships of mixed sea/river navigation. Mastering of new segments such as fishing, rescue and small-size ships is also underway. They open certain prospects for exports without which localization is questionable due to limited capacity of the home market.
Passenger ships built in Russia have fairly good sales prospects let’s say in Asia. For example, Vietnam is interested in building up its fleet of such ships. When speaking at the webinar “Russia-Vietnam: Prospects of International Cooperation in Shipbuilding” in the framework of the NEVA Exhibition & Conference, Valentin Nakhodkin, Director of the Marketing and Sales Department of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, suggested establishment of a working group on construction of ferries for Vietnam.
“Our corporation has an extensive experience in construction of various ferries, we have design bureaus that will meet all the potential requirements of the Vietnamese colleagues. We are ready to consider all possible ways of cooperation starting from designing and construction of ships at USC facilities up to partnership with the shipyards of Vietnam on field engineering support and commissioning of ships basing on jointly developed projects”, said the speaker.
It should be mentioned that Russia’s first e-ferry has been recently designed for Baltiysk – Baltiyskaya Spit line in the Kaliningrad Region with Kaliningrad State Technical University as the general contractor, Ushakovo Yards and Nordic Engineering as co-contractors. The ferry’s performance and comfort characteristics will not be inferior to those of its Scandinavian counterparts.
Besides, there are opportunities for building supply ships for Russia-Vietnam joint venture Vietsovpetro, transport ships for Azov-Haiphong line, and dredging ships as well.
High expertise has been accumulated in construction of high-speed passenger ships. This segment has already seen good examples of successful export sales.
Russia and India, in their turn, are eager to cooperate in construction of mixed-class vessels, auxiliary specialized watercraft including river dredgers and high-speed passenger vessels, Alexander Shchegolev, Deputy Trade Representative of Russia in India, said at the webinar “Opportunities of Russia-India cooperation in shipbuilding”. According to Alexander Shchegolev, more and more Russian companies are showing interest in Russia-India partnerships in the area of ship designing and construction, supply of components, establishment of joint ventures and service companies, leasing, personnel training and scientific research.
Exports to European markets also have the potential. VBoats, aluminum boats of Russian origin, are among the three most demanded brands of small-size ships in the market of Finland. According to data shared at the international online conference “Russia-Finland: prospects of international cooperation in the field of shipbuilding”, Finland has been undergoing a motor boats trade boom starting from the previous year.
In 2020, sales of boats rose by 33%, the growth over this year’s first quarter reached 30%. Sales of spare parts and components for boars have surged by almost 50%. Finnish distributors are interested in acquiring and further sale of more expensive boats which is an excellent opportunity for Russian manufacturers to build up their exports.
When speaking at the conference, Anastasia Kobzeva, Head of the Center of Small-Craft and Small-Tonnage Shipbuilding "RUSBOATS", told about most prominent export-oriented products of Russia: aircushion vessels, hydrofoil ships and small aluminum and steel boats”.
As for small-size ships, Russia is gaining expertise in the segment of rescue boats as we wrote earlier >>>>
When asked by IAA PortNews, USC President Aleksey Rakhmanov said that apart from warships the United Shipbuilding Corporation sees its prospects in export of fishing ships.
“As for a substantial financial result it is primarily military facilities. Besides, we are sure that we can be competitive in production of fishing ships. As soon as we cope with the top-priority problem related to designing ships based on Norwegian projects to ensure their compliance to the Russian register, we will hopefully be able to compete at least with Norwegian manufacturers of such sips. So, we will offer this kind of products to our clients worldwide. As for the sales markets, it would be evidently difficult to sell trawlers built in Russia to the Norwegians but there are numerous developing countries that require upgrading of their fishing fleets starting from the need of compact solutions and up to commercial shipping which is among our targets”, said Aleksey Rakhmanov.
Summing up what has been said, Russia’s civil shipbuilding has an export potential in many segments, from small-size vessels to fishing ships.
By Vitaly Chernov
news@portnews.ru
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