On January 24, Moscow hosted a conference and exhibition “Road construction in Russia. Road construction machinery and equipment: import substitution, development prospects”. The program part of the event was attended by a delegation of the Federal Road Agency headed by the head of the agency Roman Novikov.
The conference was held with the support and participation of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, Rosavtodor, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation, the State Duma of the Russian Federation, as well as specialized institutions and institutions. The organizer was the Association of Producers and Consumers of Asphalt Concrete Mixes “R.O.S.ASFALT”.
The event has become an extensive discussion platform for representatives of federal and regional authorities, design, construction and contracting organizations, expert and scientific communities, engineering and manufacturing companies in the road construction complex that create machinery and equipment, as well as introduce innovative materials and technologies for construction and road maintenance.
The agenda included issues of import substitution in the road construction complex, in particular, the specifics of creating modern domestic asphalt plants, the use of laboratory equipment and the improvement of advanced technologies and the latest materials for the construction of Russian roads.
The key event was the plenary discussion. According to the President of the Association “R.O.S.ASFALT”, Chairman of the Technical Committee for Standardization No. 418 “Road Facilities” Nikolai Bystrov, a large number of representatives of executive authorities in this conference indicates the interest of departments and state institutions in a constructive and comprehensive dialogue: ” Import substitution and localization of production are the fundamental issues of today. And the prospects for the development of these issues are quite good. The Ministry of Transport of Russia and Rosavtodor pay great attention to them, for which we are very grateful to them. A number of important steps have already been taken. For example, in Bashkiria, one of the linear construction sites will use asphalt mixes produced exclusively at Russian asphalt plants. And such decisions, I am sure, will be of help to domestic manufacturers.”
In his welcoming speech, Roman Novikov also focused the attention of the discussion participants on the importance of developing domestic road construction equipment.
“We must ensure that we have every opportunity to use our own resources, our own equipment and our own materials in the road sector. Recently, the analytics of the Rosspetsmash Association was presented, according to which in 2022 the consumption of domestic road construction equipment increased by 38%. Today, road enterprises are increasingly acquiring domestic equipment and consistently fulfilling government orders with the indicators in terms of pace and quality that are established by contracts. And this is an important positive point. I’ll tell you more about the prospects. At the moment, customers have already contracted road works worth more than 1 trillion rubles. About 2 trillion more rubles are in the process of contracting – this concerns the tasks that the state sets before us within the framework of the Safe High-Quality Roads national project and regional projects. This volume, of course, must be supported by technology, as well as the necessary equipment. Therefore, we continue to work on the development of this issue, and it is pleasant to realize that new participants in this process are appearing, ”said the head of Rosavtodor.
Sergei Ten, First Deputy Chairman of the RF State Duma Committee on Property, Land and Property Relations, dwelled on the current measures to support manufacturers of Russian materials and equipment: “Now the Industrial Development Fund is actively working, preferential terms are offered for financing Russian projects, leasing production equipment. The Fund provides targeted loans at low rates – up to 3% per annum for up to 10 years in the amount of 5 million rubles. And now manufacturers need to seriously work to ensure that these opportunities and conditions provided by the state acquire a specific qualitative result. At the same time, it is important that successful domestic projects that will use the latest technologies be provided with the proper level of information support. So that key industry players have a clear idea of how technologies are being implemented, how it works and is implemented in practice. Therefore, it seems necessary to develop a general procedure for approbation and application of new improved products in the road sector.”
Renat Gainetdinov, Deputy Director of the Department of State Policy in the Field of Roads of the Ministry of Transport of Russia, noted that qualitative steps in the field of import substitution were achieved thanks to the activities of the interdepartmental working group. Numerous meetings are actively discussing the allocation of subsidies for domestic manufacturers, as well as the creation of prototypes of road construction equipment, which have not been produced in our country before.
In turn, Director of the Department of Agricultural, Food and Construction and Road Engineering of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia Maria Elkina reminded that it is important not only to produce domestic equipment, but also to achieve its high demand among buyers. To do this, it is necessary to establish a dialogue with end users in order to understand their requests. That is why at the level of two ministries – the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Transport – a program has been developed for the standardization of road construction equipment, which must be of high quality and meet all modern challenges facing the industry.
According to Yevgeny Mukhin, Deputy Director of the Department for Pricing and Resource Support for Construction of the Ministry of Construction of Russia, a special electronic catalog was created specifically to build a successful dialogue and raise awareness. You can get acquainted with it on the website of the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation. Anyone can find out about certain positions in the road construction equipment market, about the availability of domestic analogues, their characteristics, and also take part in filling this catalog.
Oleg Stupnikov, deputy head of the department, spoke about the comprehensive work of Rosavtodor in the field of import substitution of road construction machinery, equipment and materials. In particular, it was noted that the key requirements set by contractors for road construction equipment are its technological and technical capabilities, as well as reliability and durability.
“It is important to increase the competitiveness of domestically produced equipment. As part of this work, meetings with equipment manufacturers and contractors were held at the site of Rosavtodor in 2022, where proposals for the improvement of equipment, as well as information about manufactured products, were voiced. Based on these data, manufacturers make changes to the design of individual components and assemblies, and are also working to eliminate the supply of low-quality components. Such work will be organized this year with the participation of already contracting organizations that are members of the R.O.S.ASFALT Association,” Oleg Stupnikov announced.
In addition, the speaker recalled that in order to get acquainted with advanced domestic developments, a number of joint events were successfully held in 2022 with the participation of representatives of the Ministry of Transport of Russia, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia, Rosavtodor, manufacturers and consumers of road construction equipment. Thus, at the international exhibition “Road 2022”, held in Kazan, about 226 exhibitors were represented, including domestic manufacturers of road building materials, electronic equipment and software for ITS, traffic safety, automated maintenance of bridge structures in winter, domestic manufacturers of laboratory equipment. In a separate exhibition pavilion, which was visited by more than 7.5 thousand people during the exhibition, and 128 pieces of equipment were placed on the street, among which about 70% are domestic equipment, including a mobile asphalt concrete plant, an asphalt paver, bulldozers, excavators, motor graders , dump trucks, tractors, various utility, compacting, crane and other specialized machinery and mechanisms. Also at this site, the conference “Made in Russia” was organized, in which more than 1,000 people took part in full-time and part-time format. This event brought together federal executive authorities with consumers and manufacturers of equipment.
Andrey Lotsmanov, Deputy Chairman of the RSPP Committee on Industrial Policy and Technical Regulation, addressed the issue of improving state control over the quality of products for the road transport complex. In particular, they discussed the development of the EAEU TR “On the safety of building materials”. This decision was made in April 2021. According to the speaker, the preparation of such a technical regulation will reduce the share of counterfeit and counterfeit products in the industry market, ensure the construction of safe infrastructure facilities and load the capacities of bona fide manufacturers of building materials and products.
Several thematic sessions were held in the second part of the conference. The first one was devoted to the special equipment market in Russia and measures to support it.
At the beginning of the discussion, Kairat Tursunbekov, Head of the Road Construction Department of the Federal Road Agency, delivered a welcoming speech: “Now the road sector is developing at a good pace, and we see that it is adapting to new economic realities. In many ways, this adaptation was facilitated by those important regulatory documents that were prepared by the Ministry of Transport and the Government. At present, we are ambitious in terms of the implementation of the five-year road plan. As part of the construction and reconstruction works alone, we plan to put into operation about 1,800 km of federal highways by the end of 2027, as well as more than 700 artificial structures on them – this is about 50,000 linear meters. The indicators are impressive, but we are confident in our abilities. And we will actively move towards the realization of all the goals we have set.”
Michali Paul, CEO of Ammann Russland, shared his experience of localizing the production of asphalt mixing plants. The speaker presented fresh data on the ratio of Russian and imported components at their enterprises. If in May 2022 domestic components accounted for about 61% of the total volume, then by the end of the year the figure reached 74.45%.
The session also discussed the prospects for the development of asphalt plants and key trends in the application of the latest technologies.
At the next discussion of the conference, questions were raised …
