Andrey Dutov, newly appointed board chairman of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, Russia’s shipbuilding mayor, proposes the establishment of an Arctic center responsible for research and design of specialized vessels and equipment. According to newspaper Kommersant, Dutov would like the new center to be part of the Krylov Institute, the design company which he himself heads.
Reportedly, Dutov wants both the Aisberg design bureau and the Baltiysky Zavod to be taken out of the Shipbuilding Corporation and included in the new center. He would also like the center to cooperate closely with foreign shipbuilding structures, among them the Nordic Yards, Kommersant writes.
The proposals from Mr. Dutov comes amid a wave of criticism against the Shipbuilding Corporation and its development of the Russian shipbuilding industry.
As previously reported, powerful interests in the federal government now suggest to deprive the corporation of its control over the major Zvezda super-yard project, as well as the Roslyakovo yard in Murmansk, following a number of delays in project development.
However, the proposals of Mr. Dutov will still stir controversy in both in the Shipbuilding Corporation and a number of government offices. The corporation was established in 2007 in a bid by the Kremlin to strengthen state control over the industry and has since grown to become an industrial giant. By some, the division of the huge vertically integrated corporation into several units could even be seen as indication of a low level of efficiency among this kind of companies.
