Azernews.Az

By Leman Mammadova

An enterprise for the assembly of Belarusian tractors in the Turkish city of Kirikkale was opened on April 16.

The Azerbaijan-Belarus enterprise for the assembly of tractors of the Minsk Tractor Plant (MTZ) in Turkey will be put into operation in July 2019.

BELARUS tractor assembly plant is established in the Turkish city Kırıkkale with the support of the Ganja Automobile Plant, which has been cooperating with MTZ for many years. The total area of the enterprise is 15,000 square meters.

According to the BelTA, a special version of the BELARUS-1221 model of the Euro-4 environmental standard has been developed for the Turkish market.

“This year, we plan to produce 100 tractors, next year – 200. We intend to increase the production to 2,000 units. The capacity of the plant will allow to assemble up to 3,000 tractors per year. We just need the personnel for it. Specialists of MTZ and Ganja Automobile Plant will train the local workers in Turkey,” MTZ Director General Fyodor Domotenko told media.

He noted that tractor components in large volumes will be supplied to the Ganja Automobile Plant, and further to Kirikkale for final assembly.

“It was very expensive for Belarus to open its own production of tractors in Turkey. Thanks to the support of the Ganja Automobile Plant and close ties between Azerbaijan and Turkey, about $ 1 million was saved on the construction of only one building of the enterprise,” he added.

The investment cost of the project is $17 million. A total of $5 million has been spent on it to date.

Presently, the Ganja Automobile Plant specializes on assembling of Russian “Oka” and “UAZ” cars, Belarusian “MAZ” and “Belarus” tractors, Chinese “Changan” vans & trucks and other vehicles.

Ganja Automobile Plant is the largest assembly plant of Belarusian tractors outside the Eurasian Economic Union. Launched in 2004, the plant organizes the assembly of all types of trucks and tractors of Belarusian production since 2006. So far, more than 10,000 Belarusian tractors and specialized equipment have been assembled at the Ganja automobile plant over the years.

Earlier, the Ganja Automobile Plant signed an agreement with the Belarusian company. Thus, Belkommunmash will supply four large-capacity E321 electric buses to Azerbaijan to launch a pilot electric bus route in the Ganja city in 2019.

In the future, on the basis of the Ganja Automobile Plant, it is planned to organize a joint assembly production. The parties signed an agreement on cooperation during the visit of the Azerbaijani delegation to the enterprise. Electricity savings in the operation of the electric bus compared with the trolley bus is 14 percent.

Last year, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Belarus was about $ 204 million, which is approximately $ 56 million more than the figure of 2017. However, the volume of trade between Azerbaijan and Belarus reached $ 60 million in January-February this year. The imports from Belarus to our country amounted to $ 55.9 million, while the volume of exports from Azerbaijan to Belarus was $ 3.3 million.

Products of the machine engineering industry, petrochemistry, woodworking, pharmaceuticals, military-technical cooperation made up the main Belarusian export items to Azerbaijan. In turn, Azerbaijan mainly exports to Belarus petrochemicals, vegetables, fruits and other non-oil products.

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Leman Mammadova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888

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