The meeting of Saint Petersburg municipal council resulted in the decision to give Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) the status of their strategic investor. This status touches upon the enterprise’s project involving the construction of a pressings-making plant and a maintenance metal goods center in Kolpino. These facilities will be located on the premises of Izhorskiye Zavody where the area of forty-eight hectares has been provided to put up a modern car parts producing plant in 2010 or 2011.

The examination conducted by Saint Petersburg Investments and Strategic Projects Committee’s experts has shown that MMK’s financial and economic records look very nice and that the company is a very active investor.

‘This project is very important for the city, both economically and financially. We are very glad to welcome large Russian investors in the metallurgical sector to Saint Petersburg,’ says Governor of Saint Petersburg Valentina Matvienko.

‘The new enterprise’s successful performance is bound to result in the local, regional, and federal budgets’ revenues as well as more money directed to the non-budgetary funds,’ head of Saint Petersburg Investments and Strategic Projects Committee Maxim Sokolov observes.

MMK is gradually reaching its goal of creating Russian factories that could manufacture good quality car parts that would meet all the requirements imposed by the world’s leading car manufacturers. For instance, a contract for the delivery of machinery for the multi-purpose cold-rolling unit was signed in July 2007. In August 2007, MMK bought a 75% shareholding of Intercos-IV (a Saint Petersburg-based company that makes large-sized stamping tools, up to seventy-ton press moulds, and pressings for car manufacturers and producers of home appliances). In September 2007, Governor of Saint Petersburg Valentina Matvienko and MMK BOD Chairman Viktor Rashnikov signed an investment agreement. In December 2007, the ceremony of laying the foundation stone for the future pressings-making plant took place. The event was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin (as he then was).

The plant will deal in full-cycle production of body parts and subunits for automobiles that would be totally comparable with their best foreign counterparts. This plant’s produce is to be used by car factories like Ford, Toyota, General Motors Company, and Nissan and by manufacturers of home appliances like Bosch-Siemens and Electrolux. As for the maintenance metal goods center, its produce is meant for the building industry, machine- and shipbuilding and other consumers based in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Region. Direct delivery and recycling of modern plate stock at the future facility will enable MMK to meet the needs of metal-using industrial branches in the best possible way, the spokesperson for the enterprise reports.