General Director of KAMAZ PTC Sergey Kogogin spoke at the plenary session “The New Face of Russian Industry in a Changing World: Import Substitution, Modernization, Personnel” held in Saint Petersburg during the International Forum-Exhibition Russian Industrialist.
In the course of business communication, answering a moderator’s questions, Sergey Kogogin told about import phasing-out in the Russian auto industry and at KAMAZ. He informed that, in comparison with the situation the previous spring, by that day the enterprises of the auto industry had been working hard to transform industrial processes as quickly as possible. The mass withdrawal of foreign suppliers and foreign localized partners from the market was a sudden and tough vitality test for all Russian auto makers without exceptions.
KAMAZ, like other auto producers, is integrated into the global auto industry. Supplies of almost the whole range of foreign components used earlier were stopped. In the first run, there are electronics, gearbox, axle components, exterior elements, etc.
“Consequently, such drastic adverse business changes left us the only option to concentrate our efforts on saving production and jobs. We revised production processes, perfected design documentation and technological processes. We did a lot to find Russian suppliers ready to offer an alternative to foreign components. It was decided to decrease the production volume of new generation models and focus on older models for a while. This enabled to ensure continuity of production, supply of necessary volumes of vehicles to customers,” told Sergey Kogogin. Besides, he noted that the Government had also taken measures to stimulate localization of production of crucially important components and created mechanisms to use capacities of foreign joint ventures that had stopped to fulfill their obligations.
“The year 2022 showed us that forming up directions of growth should be flexible, we need to adapt to today’s turbulent realities,” summed up the top manager of KAMAZ.
It should be recalled that one of the key events in the Russian industry – the International Forum-Exhibition Russian Industrialist – is being held at the Expoforum Convention and Exhibition Center on these days. The central event of the business program – the plenary session “The New Face of Russian Industry in a Changing World: Import Substitution, Modernization, Personnel” – took place on Wednesday, November 30, after the solemn opening of the forum and the presentation of the exposition.