Agreements have been signed with 9 residents of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in the Astrakhan region. As it is announced by the Ministry of Industry, Transport and Natural Resources of the Astrakhan region, SEZ will be located at the territory of Lotos Shipyard OJSC.
As PortNews IAA learnt from the press center of the regional Ministry, the agreement have been signed with Lotos Shipyard OJSC (modernization of production facilities for implementation of production program for 52,000 tons of steel per year), Astrflot LLC (construction of production facilities), TRANSOIL-Terminal LLC (terminal transshipping cargo from/to railway transport to/from water transport), ASK LLC (production of PVC profile and), Caspian ElectroTransport LLC (production of electric vehicles), Duna-AST LLC (construction of mini-plant), NGK LLC (creation of production facilities for production of hi-tech wind-diesel generators), Company Management Innovations Development LLC (Construction of a plant for fitting production) and NPO Ferrit LLC (production of electro-magnetic materials).
The key element of the future SEZ will be the most developed industry in the region – shipbuilding industry. Its development prospects are determined by the participation of Astrakhan-based shipyards in implementation of large-scale offshore projects in the sector of oil fields development.
In particular, Lotos Shipyard has a unique possibility to build vessels in a set of workshops to the degree of 100% which contributes to work quality and better working conditions. Over the recent decade, Lotos has been specializing in production of deck-mudules for topsides of offshore fixed platforms. It can also produce vessels and barges of any degree of complexity.
The possibility is being considered now for a location of Siemens screw-rudder manufacture in SEZ.
The project of the Astrakhan SEZ was then discussed at the meeting in the office of Lotos Director General where the SEZ project was presented to Deputy Transport Minister Victor Olerski. The meeting was headed by Konstantin Markelov, Vice-Governor, Chairman of the Astrakhan region Government. The total area of Astrakhan SEZ is to make 9.9 sq. km. The SEZ participants are provided with the major infrastructure facilities and the territory has a highway link with the federal highway М6 as well as a railway approach. The information about the project’s commercial scale and its residents was covered by Sergei Krzhanovski, Minister of Industry, Transport and Natural Resources of the Astrakhan region while Elina Polyanskaya, the region’s Minister of Economic Development told about the preferences for the SEZ residents. Elimination of tax duties, decrease of major taxes, ability to apply mechanisms on cost optimization will make it possible to decrease expenses by 15% of the vessel price and will considerably raise the competitiveness of Russian shipbuilding sector.
Victor Olerski has supported the initiative of the Astrakhan region on SEZ establishment and noted that the will of the regional authorities to provide industrialists with better manufacturing conditions is a significant step as such and that the Astrakhan region has all the opportunities for successful project implementation.