Ayrat Gizzatullin: ‘It is not necessary to bring labour migrants to Kazan’

New industrial parks are a “good contribution to strengthening partnership”

Tatarstan actively cooperates with the CIS countries, including Uzbekistan, with which trade turnover increased by almost a third last year, to $370 million. The republic, together with Khimgrad technopolis, opened two technoparks on Uzbek soil — Chirchik and Jizzakh. The first site has 24 residents, the investment volume has reached $140 million. The second site has six residents with declared investments of $39.5 million.

New projects are also being implemented with the support of Tatarstan — the creation of industrial parks on the territory of Navoi FEZ and in Bukhara region. The first building of the Navoi Industrial Development Complex is currently being built on 40,000 square metres, issues of providing the necessary utilities infrastructure, training specialists and recruiting qualified workers are being discussed.

“This is a good contribution to strengthening the partnership between our countries," the rais of Tatarstan said while receiving the minister of energy of Uzbekistan in Kazan. Recently, in December, Rustam Minnikhanov himself visited both construction sites of industrial parks.

At the same time, Tatarstan is negotiating the creation of a new industrial park in the city of Sumgait in Azerbaijan, the trade turnover with which last year amounted to $102 million, and in the first nine months of this year has already exceeded $80.8 million. “A number of Tatarstan enterprises have been working in Azerbaijan for a long time. They are ready to expand their presence,” Rustam Minnikhanov noted.

Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD to open another plant in Jizzakh

“This year has been very eventful for us,” Ayrat Gizzatullin, CEO of Khimgrad technopolis, confirmed to Realnoe Vremya, “We are also working on our main site in Kazan. The forecast for the volume of revenue of residents is that it will grow by about 20% by the end of the year and exceed 97 billion rubles, and there will also be an increase in the number of employees in the territory.”

Today, 373 organisations are working in the technopolis, 10,686 jobs have been created. Recently, another company, Aviation Interiors, has joined the pool of residents, which provides interior kits for SJ-100, MS-21, Il-114, Tu-214 and Il-96 aircraft. “We are currently building another building to expand this production and are interested in the civil aircraft industry in Tatarstan really actively developing. It has great potential, we hope that other aircraft will also be equipped with interiors produced in Kazan," the head of the technopolis said.

According to him, Chirchik technopark is actively developing in the line of international projects, where 17 residents have already launched their production. Moreover, these are not only Tatarstan enterprises, but also a number of large Russian manufacturers in various fields. In particular, TD GraSS, a manufacturer of automotive and household chemicals, recently invested $5 million in opening its plant on this site. The enterprise will produce up to 200 types of products with a volume of up to 8,600 tonnes per year, 90 jobs are being created for it. “They have a very wide range, they have organised a rather complex large-scale production in our territory and hope to advance well in the Uzbek market,” Gizzatullin specified. According to him, a large new project will soon be launched in the second technopark of Uzbekistan:

“This is a Chinese company from the mobile electric sector, which will be engaged in the production of automotive harnesses and wires, including being a contractor for BYD — the number one company in the production of electric cars in the world. It is opening a plant in the city of Jizzakh. So the accumulated experience transferred to the Uzbek market was appreciated not only by Tatarstan and Russian companies, for which we actually came to this market. The format has become popular, companies from different countries are coming to us.”

The first building of the industrial park in Azerbaijan will be completed by mid-2025

New details have emerged about the launch of the third site, this time in Azerbaijan. As Realnoe Vremya has already reported, Khimgrad and the Agency for Development of Economic Zones under the Ministry of Economy of this country agreed to create the first Russian-Azerbaijani park for localisation of business from Russia. The industrial site will be multidisciplinary, 10 hectares of land on the territory of the Sumgait Chemical Park are allocated for it.

“It is planned to build 50,000 square metres of space on the site. These are investments provided by the Azerbaijani side. At the same time, we work in the format of a joint industrial park, we are responsible for attracting residents. We expect that the first building will be launched in mid-2025 and we plan to conduct a business mission for Tatarstan companies at the beginning of the year together with the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Republic of Tatarstan, to show the park's capabilities in Azerbaijan and talk about the support measures that can be obtained, and theirs are very serious,” said Ayrat Gizzatullin.

The site will be multidisciplinary, without restrictions for opening production facilities. But first of all, the industrial park is waiting for representatives of those industries that are represented in the economy of Tatarstan and Azerbaijan — polymer production, low-scale chemical production, mechanical engineering and others. “We are open to many companies that are thinking today, looking for opportunities to enter these markets. We will support and help them as much as possible. We believe that if such thoughts exist, now is a good time to go and capture these markets.” Rais Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov, as part of a recent working trip to Azerbaijan, also visited Alyat free economic zone.

The head of the technopolis said that he believes in international expansion for Tatarstan companies, because this will allow them to expand their horizons and use those resources that have become difficult to access in Russia today: “If initially we went primarily for markets to promote our products, today two more important factors have been added. The first is workforce, in the CIS countries the demography is significantly different from the Russian one. There is a lot of young population and workforce, which, of course, requires training, but the resource is large. We see this potential — it is not necessary to bring labour migrants to Kazan, it is possible to open production abroad, in the markets of these friendly countries.”

The second important resource, according to him, is a new tool that will open up broad prospects for the Russian market. “Today, much is said about how difficult it has become to attract financing in the conditions of, in fact, prohibitive interest rates on loans after the increase in the key rate of the Central Bank. And the financial conditions that are offered in these countries, taking into account state support, are becoming quite favourable and attractive. Although, when we started these projects, we certainly did not think that our companies would have such an additional incentive,” he explained. Expansion of areas and new projects

“The project in Azerbaijan is, in fact, our third site, we are not stopping there,” Ayrat Gizzatullin specified, “We are discussing such opportunities with Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic, but the work there is still at the initial stage. In Chirchik, we have a larger project — more than 40 hectares, and now we are talking about expanding this site. We are discussing with our Uzbek partners the possibility of adding another 60 hectares of territory, because we can already see how it will be filled and in what time frame.”

Tashkent region, where Chirchik is located, as a capital region is developing at the highest rates. Therefore, Tatarstan is also considering the possibility of developing industrial sites in Nurafshan, one of the satellite cities of the capital of Uzbekistan.

In Jizzakh, there are currently about 13 hectares and about 70,000 square metres of area will be built, the project is at the construction stage. It is not as large-scale as Chirchik, but significant due to its high-tech production. It operates within the framework of a special economic zone, where international companies and local large enterprises are located. “And our residents, small and medium businesses, help them, act as subcontractors for the supply of certain products and components to these companies,” the source explained.

“What is especially important and valuable for many of our residents is that this is the first experience of organizing production outside Tatarstan, and this is also in another country. This is a really serious challenge, but there is very serious support from the Tatarstan governor at the level of the host party. For Tatarstan sites in Uzbekistan, the chairman of the council is the Prime Minister of Uzbekistan. The projects that we are implementing would not have come to the attention of the Prime Minister under other conditions. But this is a country with a population of 37 million, and such support makes it possible to develop very actively,” he added.

Two other Tatarstan parks in Navoi and Bukhara are being created on a different scale, they will be more global and with the participation of large residents. According to the republic, the implementation of such joint projects has become beneficial and interesting for both parties: Tatarstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan.