By Yuri Chernyakevich
Belarusian flagship BelAZ, which is well known worldwide, is ever seeking out new sales markets, such as those in Asia and India. The company is currently marketing itself and hopes to set up a service and maintenance centre for its machinery by the end of the year, in India, as a joint venture. Kirill Kazachenko, BelAZ’s Deputy Director General for Marketing and Export Policy, tells us, “We’re entering the Indian market with a view to offering good service, which should help us in promoting our goods.”
By the end of the year, the enterprise plans to sell ten 220 tonne vehicles to private Indian coal companies — worth $22m. Meanwhile, jointly with Indian partners, BelAZ is taking part in tenders to supply machinery to African countries: particularly, Zambia.
Many European countries, including Russia (the major buyer of Belarusian heavy-duty dump trucks) are forecasting reduced production volumes, which may result in less demand for BelAZ goods. According to Mr. Kazachenko, extracting industries are stagnating around the globe, requiring BelAZ to be proactive in seeking out new customers. He adds, “It was expected that coal prices would rise in the second half of the year but this didn’t happen. Our traditional buyers lack funds to pay for our machinery so we’re focusing on new custom in Australia, South-Africa, Zambia and Indonesia.”
MAZ has been selling to India for almost a decade but it has taken some time to find investors to set up joint production; negotiations are underway and, soon, issues regarding MAZ exports could be solved.
