March 20, 2015. A group of delegates from Omsktransmash (a member enterprise of Uralvagonzavod Corporation) took part in PromTechExpo/Siberian Industry & Innovations Forum.

According to the corporation’s press service, the plant’s Director-General Igor Lobov joined a round table discussion on how large, medium, and small enterprises could cooperate inter-industrially within a hi tech components cluster and within Omsk Region’s petrochemical cluster.

Cooperation between small and large enterprises, which becomes particularly relevant under current economic and political conditions, was the main point on the agenda. Igor Lobov said in his report on inter-industrial cooperation in armored and dual-purpose engineering vehicle production that Omsktransmash was doing business with small enterprises in the field of infrastructure development and improvement.

‘We are also ready to work on government defense orders together with small enterprises. We signed 77 contracts on engineering vehicles (worth 341m RUR altogether) with 45 suppliers last year. There are, however, some obstacles on the way. Small enterprises do not always meet all the requirements for working in this field. Their lack of the Defense Ministry acceptance procedures is a major problem, as is getting legitimate design documentation: a head plant can only transfer the documents to its partner when a confidentiality agreement is signed and when all the licensing agreements are complied with.’

According to Lobov, ties with smaller businesses could grow stronger if the technicalities of connecting a MoD representation to an enterprise were made easier and if small businesses contributing to the fulfillment of the government defense order could be offered preferential loan terms.