Russian Railroad Project
Hyundai Rotem is about to participate in the construction of the Trans-Eurasian Railway. The company is going to enter the Russian railway market in earnest and make use of every opportunity.
Hyundai Rotem announced on September 8 that the top management of UralVagonZovod (UVZ), a Russian heavy machinery and cargo train manufacturer, will visit its plant and research center in Changwon City, South Gyeongsang Province, to discuss mutual cooperation on the project.
UVZ is a company fully owned by the Russian government, with 70,000 employees and sales of US$6 billion in 2012. Its meeting with Hyundai Rotem at this time is to talk about cooperating on the construction of a local plant and technology transfer for the Trans-Eurasian Railway Project.
“We’ve decided to join the project full scale through our cooperation with Russia and set up detailed plans,” said the Korean company, adding, “We’re planning to take a leading role in the design of train cars, supply of necessary equipment and system engineering while co-manufacturing train vehicles with our Russian counterpart.” The company also mentioned that the assembly and manufacturing of train cars could be underway in North Korea if the North agreed to the connection of the networks.
Hyundai Rotem is planning to make use of this opportunity for Trans-Korean Railway (TKR) construction. The Trans-Eurasian Railway is to connect the 9,297km-long railroad tracks of the Trans-Siberian section to the European Railway that links Moscow with London. If the TKR is built to connect Busan City and Najin in North Korea, people and goods can be transported by train from Busan all the way to London.
“One of the Korean government’s foremost goals is to shore up cooperation between Russia and Korea in the Eurasia region,” said President Park Geun-hye at her summit talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 6. She continued, “I hope that there will be a rail network departing from Busan and heading for Europe via Russia.” The same idea has been suggested by Hyundai Motor Group chairman Chung Mong-koo, too. He recently remarked, “We can save a lot of cost and time by exporting our cars to Europe by means of the Trans-Siberian Railway.”
In the meantime, Hyundai Rotem is preparing to make inroads into Russia in various fields. It is currently working on high-speed and long-range locomotives that suit local environments, and is preparing to participate in the US$4.2 billion bid for the 2,500 subway cars, and US$400 million bid for the 231 circular railway cars to be in operation from 2015 in Moscow.