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We will work

Roman Galiev, is the General Director of the Alucom factory, which was established not long ago in Zheleznogorsk, and is also the manager of a CNCP project, which has made it possible for the company to expand production and create a large number of jobs.

Mr Galiev, how did the idea of opening a business in Zhelesnogorsk arise?

The first point is that we managed to find an accessible production site in Zheleznogorsk at a time when this would have been difficult in Krasnoyarsk.

Second, at that time the Russian-American Nuclear Cities Initiative programme (NCI) was working in Zheleznogorsk, and supported our idea and helped to bring it about. The Zheleznogorsk International Development Centre became directly involved in setting up the business and provided all sorts of help. We successfully fulfilled all of our obligations and that in turn played its part in helping us to obtain a grant through the British-Russian partnership. As a result, we were offered the opportunity to increase our production capacity and so strengthen our position on the market.

What problems did you face in getting production under way?

We produce composite aluminium panels, this is a fundamentally new type of production for our industry. The special types of raw materials needed are not available in Russia. However, these particular panels are very much in demand, because they are a modern, high technology, material, and I believe that they will have a big future in construction, in the sphere of manufacturing and in decoration. Problems exist linked to the absence of a systematic approach to regulatory requirements for production and the framework covering how they are applied. Other Russian manufacturers, doubtless, face similar problems.

Based on your experience, what do you think are most important factors for attracting investors to a Closed City?

First of all, and the City has to do this, is to prepare the infrastructure for production sites and provide appropriate electrical power supplies. One of the problems which we ran up against when we were setting up production was the need to lay out very large sums to get access to electricity.

To expand our market we wanted to increase our production capacity by adding a further paint line, and we were prevented from doing this because extra electric power was not available. I know there was a City development plan, which addressed the question of energy supply, but this was not carried out. A second point concerns business incubators: they are a pretty good idea and can really help in the first stages.

And what are the implications of the fact that the cities are “closed”?

Obviously, these cities have their own specifics. What is crucial is to have a precise understanding of the procedures for access, because business has to work to clearly defined deadlines and sometimes things have to be done very quickly.

How did you come to be involved in CNCP and what did you get from the Partnership?

Thanks to IDC and the efforts of its Director, Sergey Usoltsev. He was very familiar with our record of work and proposed that we should take part in CNCP. We understood the conditions for participation in the Programme; we knew what to do and how to do it.

With the CNCP grant, we installed equipment and opened a second production line, we reconstructed the heating system in the production building and constructed a cheated store. These steps significantly increased our production volume – by three hundred percent over three years. The commissioning of the second line increased our production to 2.2 million square metres a year. We now have a very broad range of products. All this would have been difficult to achieve without the help of CNCP.

How do you assess the prospects for Alucom in Zheleznogorsk?

We will work at it! At the moment there is a slump, resulting from the situation on the world market, but we are not losing hope that the market will recover and that we will once again achieve the production levels that we reached before the crisis. To do that we are strengthening the work of the sales department, and we are searching out new markets. We are already working with Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, and now we are trying to penetrate the countries of Eastern Europe.

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