Amtel president attends commissioning of Kirov-II tyre line

By Liz White, ERJ staff (lwhite@crain.co.uk)

Moscow-Amtel president Sudhir Gupta saw the commissioning of the group's latest $50-million tyre production line at the Amtel-Povolzhye tyre complex in Kirov, 26 Jan. This line will produce about two million tyres a year, pushing annual production at the complex to 7 million units, said an Amtel statement.

The plant makes tyres for cars, buses, trucks and trailers, as well as agricultural vehicles and scooters. It supplies both domestic and international vehicle manufacturers such as GAZ, AvtoVAZ, GM-AvtoVAZ, UAZ, Pavlovsky Avtobus, AMZ and Izhmash-Avto.

Commissioning of the second Kirov line means that Amtel has now “completed the key strategic task of modernising all of its production facilities and unifying them into a single technological base that meets or exceeds the best international practices and standards,” Gupta said in the firm's statement. Gupta pointed out that Amtel has invested $100 million in the Kirov complex, to modernise facilities and raise output.

Amtel has invested a total of more than $200 million in its production facilities since 2001, he added. In 2006, when the group commissions its greenfield plant Amtel-Chernozemye-II in Voronezh, total tyre output will be 20 million tyres per year, Gupta pointed out.

At the Kirov ceremony, Gupta and Nikolai Shaklein, governor of the Kirov Region, discussed further expansion of the Amtel-Povolzhye complex to increase production, and to provide wider employment opportunities, Amtel's statement added.

The picture shows Amtel chief Gupta (right foreground) looking round the new line with Vladimir Dorovsky, director for development at Amtel-Povolzhye (left foreground).