OREANDA-NEWS. April 19, 2011. Six months have passed since a plant assembling vehicles and special machinery – KAMAZ-Vostok, the first assembly production of KAMAZ in Russia – was opened last October in Khabarovsk.

The enterprise assembles crew buses, cars with crane-manipulators, insulated vans, high-sided cars and some other models of KAMAZ vehicles of assembly kits supplied from Naberezhnye Chelny. A universal range of parts and units is produced by local enterprises, and some special automotive components are purchased in South Korea.

Due to such an organizational management at the JV, the cost of its products is significantly reduced. Earlier, oversized vehicles were transported by rail across the whole country, which appreciably decreased their price competitiveness. In addition, KAMAZ customers from the Far East have began to receive vehicles against orders much faster since the JV started operating.

According to Pavel Stanishevsky, Director General of OOO KAMAZ-Vostok, the number of orders is constantly growing, so the company will move to the plant named after A.M. Gorky in the near future. The area is now being prepared for production organization: the workers are cleaning the territory, preparing lighting and airing; they have removed two beam cranes from dead storage and prepared them for work.

To date, the manufacturing facilities of the joint venture are meant for annual production of 200-250 units. But according to the business project of the enterprise, it is planned to expand the producton space to 1,500 square meters, to increase the number of employees more than three times, and to work in two shifts. New models of vehicles are being developed. One of the latest developments is a vacuum vehicle on KAMAZ-43253 chassis. The volume of its vacuum unit is 8 cubic meters (compare with a similar model produced by ARZAMAS MACHINE-BUILDING FACTORY FOR COMMUNAL SERVICES with a vacuum unit of 5 cubic meters). In addition, the commercial production of crew buses on KAMAZ-43118 chassis was mastered. The enterprise started producing road cars with reagent distributing devices installed in their bodies. Among the main products assembled there are insulated vans and vans for transportation of manufactured goods which are in high demand too.

A vacuum press will soon be launched for production of sandwich panels. This equipment will enable to make components for production of insulated vans, dual-purpose vehicles and crew buses in the region, which will shorten time of delivery to final consumers. In addition, it was decided to establish a vehicles trading facility in order to increase consumption.

The pride of OOO KAMAZ-Vostok is its cranes with manipulating control. The enterprise also produces truck tractors based on KAMAZ-65224 chassis with SOOSAN crane-manipulators. There are also orders for high-sided cars of the same kind. Delivery of 6 vehicles against an order of the administration of Khabarovsk Kray is scheduled for July; the number of delivered cars will have been increased to 20 units till the end of the year. Negotiations are currently under way to deliver more than 50 units of vehicles to enterprises of the Far East Federal District. This batch will include dump trucks with bodies produced in South Korea, special tanks, cars with crane-manipulators, special vans, and container trucks.

Due to the successful operation of its joint venture in the region, KAMAZ, as the guarantor of transportation security in Russia, intends to further reduce the flow of used, substandard and unsafe vehicles produced by some Asian manufacturers which penetrate into the Far East market.