UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 31, 2017. The international aircraft giants Boeing and Airbus might no longer be buying titanium from VSMPO AVISMA, Verkhnyaya Salda, President of Ural Chamber of Commerce & Industry Andrei Besedin says.

‘Both Titanium Valley and the Mid-Urals Development Corporation, as well as Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Investment & Economic Development, are painfully aware of where our negotiations with Boeing and Airbus are going. The time is coming when they won’t need our titanium any longer, as their entire designer teams are working to switch to completely new materials such as composite stuffs for wings, fuselages, and other components,’ Besedin says.

According to Besedin, if these plans become a reality, ’20% of Sverdlovsk Region’s foreign trade turnover (some $2bn a year) will vanish into thin air’.