Machine building industry

Machine building industry of the Chelyabinsk region is more than 100 years old. The first machine building plant is considered to be the road-building machine plant founded in 1898 for plough and share production. Construction of a legendary tractor plant in the 30-s of the XX century was acknowledged to be the greatest construction project of the past century. Many plants were evacuated from the European part of the USSR to the Chelyabinsk region during the Great Patriotic War, a number of plants were constructed in the postwar period, and nowadays the machine building complex of the region represents a real machine building encyclopedia.

Machine building remains attractive for investors – great intelligent potential of engineers and technicians, skilled personnel, vast production areas provide the opportunity to launch various projects, multipurpose equipment can be used not only for machine building production.

The percentage of machine building and metal work in the total output of industrial products in 2005 was 11.3%. This branch of industry employs 28% of the total number of all the industrially employed personnel.

Machine building complex is represented by motor industry (38.3%), machines and equipment production (38.1%), electrical machine building (23.6%).

The main products of the machine building complex are ore mining and smelting equipment, trams, industrial tractors, trucks, bulldozers, motograders, cranes.

The leading companies of the machine building industry are OAO (OJSC) Motor Plant “Ural”, OOO (LLC) “Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant “Uraltrak”, OAO “Chelyabinsk Plant “Teplopribor”, PG (Industrial Group) “Metran”, FGUP (Federal State Unitary Enterprise) “Ust-Katav Railcar Building Plant”, OAO “Kopeysk Machine Building Plant”, etc.

Companies which belong to the military industrial complex, now being converted, contribute much to the capacity of metal work and precision machine building industry.

The most important objectives of the machine building industry are: preservation and development of technical-scientific potential, curbing of production and reorganization of unprofitable enterprises, change of the product range, use of the most valuable elements of industrial, scientific-technical, and technological potential of military industrial machine building for modernization of civil machine building.

In the interests of the industry, Chelyabinsk region is now realizing “Complex plan of support measures of machine building and military industrial complexes in 2005-2008”.