Cluster of Automotive Industry helps the Russian automotive industry to overcome current challenges. 164 members from 23 regions of Russia and threefold increase in demand of Cluster services
On August 25, 2022, in Togliatti, there was held a meeting of the Association Council and a general meeting of members of the Machine-building Association Cluster of Automotive Industry. During the events there were summed up the results of the Cluster's work for the previous year and outlined priority development directions for 2022-2023.
At the general meeting, the Cluster Council was elected, the updated Council members are: Eduard Vaino - a member of the Board of Directors of AVTOVAZ, Chairman of the Council, Mikhail Sosnin - Vice President for Procurement of AVTOVAZ, Deputy Chairman of the Council, Andrey Kraynov - General Director of the Machine-building Association Cluster of Automotive Industry, Maksim Simonov - Krista, Vyacheslav Maleev - President of AVTOKOM Group of Companies, Evgeny Parkhandeev - Director of Rulevyie Systemy, Srdjan Sreckovic - General Director of GOMMA LINE LLC, Yulia Guseva - Managing Director of Gestamp Russia, Igor Gun - General Director of NPO BelMag, Tatiana Filimonova - Director of Prizma.
The Council represents 8 key regions of the automotive industry of the Russian Federation.
20 companies joined the Сluster: CHKPZ, A.Raymond RUS, DIPO, SMRC Automotive Technology RU, SAARGUMMI-RUSSLAND, Prokesh and Co. RUS, MOTORIKA, KEDR, ISKOZH, Protective Coatings, Protekhnologiya, AVANGARD, TechnoServis-TLT, Tehnoline, Tri Tochki, Tehcom, Dimitrovgradskiy ventilnyy zavod, VEGA-Ryazan, BOZTEKIN, NPC PRUZHINA. The total number of Cluster members has increased to 164 from 23 regions.
During the general meeting, there were approved annual and accounting reports for 2021, Cluster's priority areas of activity for 2022-2023. Andrey Kraynov was re-elected as General Director of the Cluster.
Also, there was made a decision to join in finalizing the Strategy for the Development of the Automotive industry of the Russian Federation until 2035. The Cluster will start collecting proposals from companies for further discussion with the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia.
In the current situation, when lots of foreign OEMs and Tier-1 companies have suspended their activities or left the market despite long-term commitments, the Cluster team continuously works on finding new customers in friendly countries. Thus, since 2020, Cluster has been working with Belarusian companies including the automaker Belgee. Since 2022, Cluster cooperates with large customers from the Republic of Uzbekistan, such as UZ- Auto Motors, ADM Jizzakh, as well as a number of Tier-1 suppliers.
At the same time, we are talking about mutually beneficial cooperation, involving supplies from Russia to Uzbekistan and from Uzbekistan to Russia. There are already several successful examples when domestic suppliers successfully enter the Uzbek market with the help of a Cluster.
During the discussion, participants discussed the topic of state support. It was noted that companies that applied to the Cluster for assistance and explanations on state support tools did not remain without the attention of the Cluster management. Also, the work on informing members about current and new state support measures will be intensified, as it will be taken into account by AVTOVAZ when sending requests to suppliers and further tender procedures organization.
Sergey Tishin, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Samara Region – Head of the Department of the Machine-building complex told about the state support measures for enterprises of the automotive component industry and also noted the high efficiency of the Cluster when helping local suppliers to achieve the requirements of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance and AVTOVAZ.
As one of the main directions, there was noted the development activities on tests localization. This year, the Cluster began to actively interact with Rosstandart structures on conducting tests for automotive industry companies. Taking into account the overall benefits of this interaction, the parties signed a cooperation agreement within the framework of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in order to develop local competencies in the field of testing components and materials for the automotive industry to the world level.
The prerequisites for this agreement were the problems arising for the automotive industry companies due to the inability to conduct certification, validation, periodic tests and tests on new and current problems. Most of these tests were conducted abroad. However, due to the imposition of sanctions, they have become inaccessible to domestic manufacturers of automotive components. During the research conducted by the Cluster there was identified the need for more than 1300 tests of 102 companies from 23 regions of the Russian Federation. Given the economic changes we can predicted that the need for testing will increase.
After considering all the issues on the meeting agenda and exchanging views on the further Cluster development, solving industry issues, there was a delivery of certificates to the Cluster members and invitation to the Tooling Supplier Day, which was opened immediately after the general meeting.