UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, July 15, 2011.
‘The launch of the new Mill 2000 is a truly important event not only for Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works but for the entire country’s metallurgical industry as well. It is also a significant thing for the Russian automobile industry, because our localizing goal here could not possibly be achieved without the availability of the automobile body sheets you are starting to produce,’ Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) employees.

Vladimir Putin actually attended the launching ceremony of Mill 2000 first section at MMK today and pressed the symbolic red button. The facility, capable of manufacturing 2 million tons of produce a year, will deal in making high quality cold-rolled and zinc-coated rolled products for external and internal car parts.

‘Importing so many automobile sheets from abroad makes no economic sense. However, once these sheets get produced locally, the economic factor come to look quite different. So you are doing a good thing,’ Putin told MMK workers.