OREANDA-NEWS. Vnesheconombank Chairman Vladimir Dmitriev, Governor of the Saratov region Valery Radeev and representatives of Bombardier participated in a ceremony to lay a foundation stone for a locomotive plant in the city of Engels.

The project aims to build an advanced locomotive production facility on the basis of the joint venture between Bombardier and the Engels Locomotive Plant (CJSC) with a high degree of localization. The total value of the plant is 200 million US dollars.

A memorandum on cooperation in implementing this project was signed between Vnesheconombank, the Government of the Saratov region and the Engels Locomotive Plant (CJSC). The memorandum provides for constructing production facilities, a training center to train locomotive teams and a service center. The parties also intend to develop an advanced main-line locomotive to operate on Russian and CIS railways.

Vnesheconombank’s subsidiary – OJSC VEB- Leasing is expected to participate in implementing this project as a company leasing production facilities, plant equipment as well as locomotives.

The plant is scheduled to be launched in early 2015; the first developmental prototypes are expected to be assembled as early as next year. This project’s implementation would help to create new jobs both in the Saratov region as well as in regions where suppliers of component parts are located. It is expected that as a result of launching this plant revenues in the budgets of all levels will amount to more than 12 billion rubles from 2013 to 2026. More than 1 thousand jobs are planned to be created.