MOSCOW. June18 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian machine builders cannot satisfy the requirements of ship builders in equipment, Oleg Shulyakovsky, Director General of the Baltiysky Zavod shipyard, has said.
"Speaking of the products of Russian machine builders to be used in shipbuilding, we, unfortunately, have to say that the equipment and fittings of Baltiysky Zavod, as well as of all other enterprises in the industry, are far from satisfying the up- to-date international requirements and standards," Shulyakovsky said in an interview with the Arsenal magazine.
According to him, one of the reasons for such state of affairs is the fact that "in the 1990s a number of Russian machine building companies simply ceased to exist."
Shulyakovsky maintained that until now "the Baltiysky Zavod has managed to be a successful machine builder," but added "we have to import up to 90 percent of (ship-building - Interfax-AVN) equipment to assemble ships in the jigs of our plant."
He said that the volumes of import grow. According to him, one can say for sure that there is no up-to-date equipment of Russian origin for this purpose.
"The machinery that we can build was designed 15-20 or even 30 years ago. Therefore, the equipment is, of course, obsolete, and we should not produce more and more of it," he said.
Shulyakovsky maintained that they are seeking ways to change the situation radically. "We plan to cooperate with the Proletarsky Plant, manufacturing equipment for ship building, and some other design bureaus to joint efforts and make a breakthrough," said he.
He also said that the new hull processing workshop's putting into operation at Baltiysky Zavod last year seems an optimistic sign. "Everything, from the development to the construction of manufacturing capabilities, was performed with the hi-end quality. We invested USD40m in the project," he added.