By Nikolay Zhukovsky
A contract for the investment of around 100m Euros has been signed between BMZ and a 30 year partner of Zhlobin steelworks — famous Italian company Danieli (a world leader in metal processing equipment). According to Anatoly Savenok, BMZ Director General, the new line will be export-oriented, with locally produced cast bars and blooms used as raw materials. Added value will be over 80m Euros annually, while around 800 new jobs are to be launched at the factory. Staff training has begun at Zhlobin Metallurgical College; the jobbing mill is scheduled to begin operations in 2013, by which time training will be complete.
Specialists from the steel branch note that the promising project should pay for itself within four years, while giving a powerful impetus to the development of domestic metal production. It will also be a model for the mastery of the most advanced technologies.
Italian funding is to be used for ultra-modern and efficient equipment which, according to Danieli’s Vice President Key Account Management, Renato Pezzano, will raise sales of BMZ goods domestically and abroad. Already, over the first six months of this year, the Belarusian Steel Works’ exports have increased by 34 percent (on the same period of the previous year) — comprising 78 percent of the enterprise’s total sales.
