The United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC),which will consist of the state owned shipbuilding and shiprepairing assets, has passed the registration stage. The registration process lasted almost four months: Decree on the establishment of USC was issued in April 2007, but the process was completed at the end of July.
The reason for this was the fact that not everyone has actively supported the Decree, from the directors of the shipyards to the federal ministries. Also the registration was partly delayed by the personnel instability: Mr. Aleksander Burutin spent more that six months getting hold of the important issues, and now he was replaced by Mr. Yuriy Yarov, an ex-vice-premier of the government of the Russian Federation in 1990s.
The registration of USC is the first and not the most difficult step in reorganization of the shipbuilding, however this was not easy. The more difficult matters are yet to be sorted: changing the status of the plants and placing their shares in the funds of the regional subholdings of USC (Northern, Western and Far Eastern), division of the plants' control and managements of USC's financial currents, negotiating the cooperation tactics with the private companies (for instance "Northern dockyard" where the state holds only 21% of shares; "Yantar" where the state owns 51% of shares, and others). With reference to the most optimistic expert views, most of the plants and companies will change their status only in 2009, instead of mid 2007 as it was originally planned.
Earlier this year it seemed as if the state has finally brought its attention to this industry and that the long waited reform would come along very soon. However, everything is extremely slow, and as the time goes by the hopes for the development of the national shipbuilding which today is in no way competitive on the world's market (both military and civil) begin to fade.
Material of "Expert"
