/ world today news/ The next five years will be significant for Russian civil shipbuilding. The state is ready to invest colossal funds to multiply the number of built sea and river vessels. In the last ten years, 100 ships have been produced, and in the next five years, about 260 are planned to be built. This will not only help to raise the entire shipbuilding industry in the country, but also expand Russia’s opportunities in trade with friendly countries.
“Over the next five years, we will significantly renew the merchant fleet. The Ministry of Industry and Trade has already made changes to the massive shipbuilding program. To implement it, we will attract funds from the National Welfare Fund,” said President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the PMIF plenary session. “I would like to note that within the framework of this program in 2023-2028 it is planned to build at least 260 ships in Russian shipyards,” the head of state emphasized.
For this purpose, at the beginning of the year, an investment order was created by the state for the construction of these 260 ships. The total investment will amount to 231 billion rubles, of which 136 billion rubles will come from the National Welfare Fund. The initiator and executor of the project is the State Transport Leasing Company.
This is an extremely ambitious task. For comparison: since 2013, DTLK has ordered the construction of 157 ships in Russia, and only a hundred of them have already been transferred to shipping companies (mostly commercial ships). That is, in ten years only 100 ships were built, and in the next five years the plan is to assemble 260 ships, that is, 2.6 times more.
It is assumed that thanks to this investment project, the industry will undergo a deep transformation – it is necessary to carry out import substitution, acquire the necessary competences in terms of components, increase production efficiency and introduce modern management methods, such as at the same time, the volume of production increased.
The fact that the state is ready to allocate funds from the National Welfare Fund for these projects speaks of the importance of bringing civil shipbuilding in Russia to a qualitatively new level.
The renewal of the country’s fleet is necessary, including in the context of the new geopolitical situation and the redirection of trade relations from Europe to Asia.
“Shipbuilding is also important, as the shift to trade with the countries of the East and South was announced earlier, and water transport plays a big role here. For example, one of the main routes of the international transport corridor “North-South” passes through several bodies of water, and in the coming years more ships will be needed here”, says Dmitry Baranov, leading expert at Finam. As part of the implementation of the North-South transport corridor, which connects Russia with Iran and further with India, the volume of export traffic is planned to double by 2025 and triple by 2030. According to analysts, the additional cargo flow along the corridor for three years will amount to 5-7 million tons of export and 2-7 million tons of import cargo. By 2030, it will grow to 14.6 million tons in the baseline scenario and to 24.7 million tons in the optimistic one. It is mainly about the delivery of grain and container cargo. Earlier, Mikhail Mishustin indicated approximately the same figures: an increase in cargo traffic by 135% by 2030 – up to 32.5 million tons (of all modes of transport).
Previously, the potential of this corridor was not fully used, as there were routes through the ports of the Baltic and Azov-Black Sea basins, but in the new geopolitical situation, Russia must expand the geography of transport along any new routes.
“Western sanctions affected not only air traffic with hostile countries and road transport, but also sea transport. At the same time, new transport corridors are being formed, for example, Europe – Turkey – Azerbaijan – Dagestan. It carries part of the cargo that was previously delivered to Russia via the Baltic states and Poland with Belarus. The importance of the eastern direction is also growing – in the near future, the flow of goods from China directly and through Kazakhstan will also increase significantly,” says Arina Redko, a leading specialist from the Center for Information Communications of Plekhanova State University.
To understand: of the 260 ships to be built in the next five years, 119 are cargo ships, 73 passenger ships, 10 fishing vessels, 27 dredgers (necessary for navigable rivers), one floating dock, 10 tugs, 20 barges .
“Cargo vessels can be for both liquid cargo and bulk, piece, container and others. “Passenger ships are needed above all for the development of domestic tourism, and different equipment is needed for the arrangement of waterways,” says Baranov.
At the same time, commercial, tourist or fishing companies are offered attractive financial conditions for leasing vessels. The main conditions are “zero” down payment, preferential interest from 2.93% to 7.6% depending on the type of vessel, lease term up to 25 years.
“All in all, it’s a serious challenge, but the task is real and meaningful. Competition in some positions is quite weak, but industry associations and large enterprises from other industries see how actively shipbuilding is developing, how the number of ships under construction is increasing, and the demand for the fleet and related equipment is increasing. Of course, the fastest saturation of the market with analogues of equipment that has been stopped by sanctions is a top priority. And the new subsidies should help to complete the construction of ships that are in the process of construction and have certain difficulties due to non-delivery of equipment and lack of analogues of Russian origin, Redko believes.
Government spending on the development of civil shipbuilding is an important supporting mechanism for the growth of industry and the country’s economy.
“Firstly, orders for the creation of marine and river equipment will support manufacturers and ensure the modernization and sustainability of the entire industry. Second, shipbuilding orders will provide employment for employees and allow enterprises to maintain their competence in shipbuilding. Third, the shipyards will increase the revenue from the export of complex products, improve the safety of shipping. “Fourth, the ships will need a significant amount of various equipment, parts and accessories, and the shipyards will order all this mostly in the country,” says Baranov. Moreover, not only the shipbuilders themselves, but also many related enterprises will benefit from the project. It is important to have competition between the different shipyards, then they will be able to build faster and cheaper, plus it is important to control costs at each stage so that funds are not wasted, the source concluded.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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