Director General of Haier Park: ''We watched, studied and chose Tatarstan. Three years proved that we picked the right''
Guests of Parkl international industrial parks forum praised the republic of Tatarstan and the work of local SEZs
The II international forum of industrial parks ParkI started its work along with the forum Russia — Islamic World: KazanSummit 2019. Representatives of large companies that localized their production in Tatarstan, including Chinese Haier, told what is the advantage of industrial sites with special economic conditions. Despite the transport and infrastructure convenience and tax incentives, according to the speakers, there is still a personnel problem, which arises both because of the scale of production facilities opening in the territories of the SEZ and the ones associated with more specific difficulties, such as the language barrier. Read the details in the material of Realnoe Vremya.
Why Tatarstan?
This year, KazanSummit has been moved from Korston to Kazan Expo exhibition centre in Laishevsky district, and along with it the second forum of industrial parks, which, according to the organizers, should discuss real cases of work in areas with special conditions.
Three years ago, the Chinese company Haier entered Tatarstan. The republic was chosen, despite the fact that it does not meet the standard solution for the localization of production, which the company adheres to in such situations, said Director General of Haier industrial park Sun Zhenhua: “Usually, a port is chosen for the localization of production — closer to export. But Russia is a very large market. We should look not only at the proximity to the sea — the plant should be close to the consumer. The location in Tatarstan is very convenient because the large population density means that the goods will quickly reach the final consumer.”
When choosing a place, an important factor was the investment climate, Zhenhua continued: “Tatarstan annually occupies a leading position among the best regions to create a comfortable climate for investors. This is very important for us, because we invest not for a short term, but for 10 years.”
The speaker noted that three projects have been implemented in 3 years and the stable climate in the company is valuable. “5 years ago we started the project ‘Globalization’ for the production of refrigerators — we looked, studied and chose Tatarstan. These three years have proved that we have chosen the right,” said the director general of the park.
This year KazanSummit has moved from Korston to Kazan Expo exhibition centre in Laishevsky district, and along with it — the second forum of industrial parks, which, according to the idea of the organizers, is to discuss real cases of work in areas with special conditions
Profitable climate
“Tatarstan has a very attractive climate,” Director General of Kamastal Alevtina Kuzmina affirmed. The company launched the production two weeks ago, becoming an anchor resident of the Nizhnekamsk industrial park Pioner.
Kuzmina noted that the company occupies about half of all ready-made premises in the park, and an industrial cluster has already begun to form around it in the field of metalworking, whose enterprises use the company's products, that is, the creation of an industrial park contributes to the maximum concentration of related industries in one territory, she added: “This reduces the logistics and other costs of companies and increases at times their competitiveness, and as a consequence, the level of the region.”
SEZ is the tool of regional support, which is well known in business, it is a tool with a history, continued Polina Ulzutueva, the head of the department for work with investors of SEZ St. Petersburg JSC. She cited data: such zones have existed in Russia for 14 years, there are 26 of them (in the world — 4,000). “We can say with confidence that this is one of the effective tools to attract investment in the country's economy,” she added.
The participants of the session have repeatedly noted the conditions that are offered by default in special zones, and this is a great support for the production facilities opening here. According to Ulzutueva, it is a tool that has a guaranteed by the legislation set of tax incentives, customs preferences, the characteristics of the preferential conditions for the purchase of land plot, for quick connection to the engineering and technical networks.
“I think the main thing is vocational education after all, and foreign language proficiency will be an additional requirement for more,” Sergey Maslyokhin, the director for development of key projects at the consulting company Vernoe Reshenie, disagreed
Staffing difficulties
At the same time, the economic support of the production facilities localized in the SEZ is not able to solve some problems, one of which is the personnel issue, the participants complained.
Kuzmina complained about the lack of employees who would understand the high-tech Chinese equipment used in the production. As a result, the company is forced to attract foreign labour — citizens of China. Here appears the artificially created by previous actions problem — the lack of personnel with knowledge of the Chinese language, “Since we attract foreign personnel, we must ensure communication between Russian citizens and Chinese.”
We have to fight against the problem by own efforts, organizing training for Russian experts on this equipment on the basis of local petrochemical college. “Learn Chinese,” she urged.
“I think the main thing is vocational education after all, and foreign language proficiency will be an additional requirement,’ Sergey Maslyokhin, the director for development of key projects at Vernoe Reshenie consulting company, disagreed.
“It is extremely difficult to teach to be a specialist, it is easier to learn the language. Besides, the technical capabilities already remove this barrier: for example, a person in a hotel, he has an application that creates contact with a native speaker. And there is a professional barrier,” he concluded. Kuzmina confirmed that professionals from different countries can find a common language. “I have encountered many times: when you need to translate subtle engineering moments that you do not quite understand in Russian, but you see that people who speak different languages, somehow — drawings, gestures, whatever — understand each other. I absolutely support Sergey Vladimirovich.”
In Haier, as it turned out, there is also a personnel problem, but associated with the opening of new plants, for which it is necessary to actively attract labour force. The company launches a new project, this time “not on refrigerators, but on washing machines and TVs”, to which it is necessary to “attract another 500 people”.
“We are always ready to teach. In the first project, 30 people were sent to China for a month to study in the Chinese park. There is not enough labour here,” Zhenhua shared.
The forum relocation to the new site has caused organizational difficulties, such as navigation: it was difficult for guests to understand in which of the stands in different pavilions they should register. Volunteers navigated the participants, including guests of KazanSummit, in different directions and did not always guess, as a result, someone had to stand in more than one queue. There were also problems with the media, for which a separate registration was provided in another pavilion.
