What is the economy potential of Donbass? Is there are the economically promising enterprises? Should  the economy of the destroyed region must be deal with the revival or it’s better to focus on the more prosperous regions? Such question seems blasphemous, but in spite of this the survival of the state depends on it. The topic of the resurrection of the liberate regions of Donbass is very extensive and it can’t be covered in one article, that’s why informator.lg.ua begins the publication of the series of the materials, in each of which we descry the separate regions and enterprises.

Novokramatorsky Machine-Building Plant (NMBP) was founded in 1934 in town Kramatorsk. Today it is one of the top enterprises of heavy machinery not only in Ukraine and countries of ex-USSR, but in the world. The plant is specialized on the producing of mining and mineral processing, metallurgy, metal-processing, lifting, power and special equipment as well as equipment for the aerospace industry.

A long time the plant stays the main town-forming enterprise of Kramatorsk (nearly 46% of the town’s budget). It was captured by the insurgents of “DPR” on April 2014, but after the liberation of Kramatorsk it began to work again.

Today, unfortunately, plant is going through the hard times. Georgiy Skudar, the president and main owner of the enterprise, says: “The actions that managers of the plant do is the daily struggle for the surviving”.

A few reasons of such situation exist. The first one is the global economic crisis. The main customers of the production of NMBP are mining and processing, metallurgical and metal-processing branches of industry. But the the largest decline in production was noticed  actually in these industries. The next reason, rather a hall complex of the reasons is the situation on the East of Ukraine.

Before the war the share of production plant in the world market of metallurgical equipment, accounted for almost 9% and it’s the incredible fantastic figure. Also 81% of production came on export in Russia.

It’s clear that now we can forget about this number, but the most unpleasant that on the remaining 30% of the export is not expected, because the optimal way to deliver is water transport. NMBP was fully orient on Mariupol Sea Trade Port, which can’t function in full, because of obvious reasons. The delivery of the production in the ports of Odessa or Nikolaev increases its cost and respectively, competitiveness. There is also not so smoothly on the inside market — the general crisis of the Ukrainian economy affects.

But first of all we’re interested in question: how to recover and as far as possible to improve the economic indicators?

Let’s observe the problems of the enterprise more in detail. And from the leadership, because the viability of any enterprise originally depends of its leadership.

The President of NMBP company Georgiy Skudar.

Member of Parliament (MP) from the Party of Regions of the fourth, fifth and sixth convocations, a trustee of the presidential candidate of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. After the liberation of Kramatorsk, the leadership of the plant  was charged in aiding and abetting terrorism, however during the investigation all accusals were dropped.

Georgiy Skudar. The President of NMBP company 

Can we say that the current leadership of the factory is loyal to the new government and in general to the new Ukraine? Any built opinion will be subjective, but economy is the objective sphere, that’s why it’s better to judge on facts, not on assumptions. The facts is: the plant stayed the innovation enterprise of heavy machinery in Ukraine and countries of ex-USSR, a lot of money are invested in the searchings and technologies, only for the last 5 years the Construction Bureau of the factory got 289 patents. The plant got 250 millions of the investitions in 2012. According to the words of Georgiy Skudar the increasing of the investitions is planning on 2014-2015. From the another side there were a lot of rumors about wish of the owner to sell the enterprise or to “Industrial Union of Donbass” or to Russian’s “Severstal”. To be fair all of this is about 2010-2012 the worst years in the history of the plant.

The one of the most serious problems of the plant is the logistics, because of absolutely destroyed infrastructure of Donbass. The main railway stations Donetsk and Debaltsevo are located on the territory of “DPR” and roads are seriously damaged. Mariupol’s Sea trade Port, which was called the Sea Gates of Donbass can’t function on the full power, furthermore the exit in Black Sea is complicated now. The delivery of such oversized equipment in ports of Odessa or Nikolaev with railway or even air transport is a serious problem.

And at the end there is a problem with the orders. As we have been saying 51% of export was accounted  on Russia. This market partly lost and it looks like that for a long time. What about last 30%?. The plant supply its production into the countries of CIS and in a little number in Western Europe, USA and China. The conclusion that factory has the potential could be done. The difficulty is in the subject problem: NMBP can compete in terms of price and quality, and technological level of production, but unfortunately the lobbying on the state plays plays its important role. The marketing on the international level that’s what we are seriously lagging behind western competitors. And it’s only partly problem of the plant, on of the main roles must play the state, it might to lobby the interests of own manufacturers, to develop the information programs…

The two models of the economy development exist. They are the innovative and catching. The first model is for development of USA and the developed countries of Western Europe, in general it is the countries with strong economy. It hasn’t been available for us yet. In short, the sense of it that state must help and defends the interests of the perspective, export-oriented enterprises, regardless of their form of ownership.

NMBP is such an enterprise without any doubts and it will be logic and necessary to pay attention on it. The global crisis and “ATO” will end early or late, but it will be practically impossible to recover bankrupt enterprise of such a caliber.
Petr Zlenko for informator.lg.ua